Dibrugarh, July 8: The eighth round of bilateral discussions on tea wage revision did not have any significant breakthrough today.
The talks were held between the Consultative Committee of Plantations? Associations (CCPA), representing the employers? associations, and the Asom Chah Karmachari Sangha (ACKS), which represents the 20,000-odd tea garden employees of the Brahmaputra Valley.
The discussions, which began an hour behind schedule, were continuing at the time of filing this report.
Sources attending the meeting said the CCPA stressed the need to take up the revision of the leave travel assistance (LTA) agreement, which is pending since 2000.
But the ACKS stuck to its demand for revision of the wage agreement, which has been pending for the past couple of years.
?Revision of the LTA agreement is one of our demands, but revision of the wage agreement is our main demand. We had made it clear to the CCPA that it should be accorded top priority,? said ACKS general secretary Girish Chandra Borpatra Gohain, when contacted on his cellphone during a break.
The discussions, which are being held at the Bharatiya Cha Parishad (BCP) hall, is being attended by CCPA secretary-general Manojit Dasgupta, who is also the secretary-general of the Indian Tea Association (ITA).
The CCPA is the apex body of tea associations such as the Assam Tea Planters? Association (ATPA), the Assam Branch of the Indian Tea Association (Abita), the BCP, the North East Tea Association (Neta) and the Tea Association of India (TAI).
?The industry has been passing through a bad phase for the past seven years. This year, the prices are going up slightly, which is why we had wanted to discuss the LTA revision issue first, since revision of the wage agreement will put a severe burden on the managements,? a CCPA member said.
The wage agreement, signed between the ACKS and the CCPA after bilateral discussions, is renewed every three years.
However, the last bilateral agreement between the CCPA and ACKS expired on March 31, 2003.
Since then, seven rounds of bilateral discussions have taken place, without much of a result.
The ACKS had also resorted to an agitation, demanding early revision of wages.
