INDIA
The government of Assam awarded an interim pay raise of $0.45 per day through 2019 as negotiations continue over wage parity in the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys.
Tea workers maintain that growers must implement the Minimum Wage Act, which establishes a national baseline for agriculture wages. Growers favor independent negotiations on three-year intervals which have been the practice since 1977. A working committee of planters, workers, and government officials continues to seek a resolution.
The Assam raise, which is retroactive to March 1, 2018, brings daily wages to $2.43 in the Brahmaputra River Valley and $2.11 per day in the Barak Valley.
Workers will also for the first time be covered by government insurance in case of permanent disability or death. Coverage applies to 800,000 workers with bank accounts and will expand as others qualify. Under the program, the government transfers an annual premium to personal accounts where it is debited. In a related development McLeod Russel, the largest tea plantation company in the world, closed the sale of 12 estates in eastern Assam, continuing a decade-long pattern of divestment by multinationals.
The estates produce 10.5 million kilos (m.kg) of tea. McLeod remains a major player in tea, producing 67 m.kg from 48 Indian tea gardens of which 43 were in Assam and 5 in West Bengal. During the period 2010-14 McLeod sold several Indian tea gardens and increased its holdings in Rwanda (4.5 m.kg), Uganda (17 m.kg), and Vietnam (8 m.kg). Global production is greater than 100 m.kg.
Mumbai-based M.K Shah Exports Ltd purchased eight of the gardens in the Doomdooma region of eastern Assam and paid $49.1 million.
Kolkata-based Luxmi Group purchased four gardens near Moran in Assam’s Dibrugarh district.