With the breakdown of tripartite talks between tea workers, planters and the state government, an indefinite strike is imminent in some 325 tea gardens in northern West Bengal from next month.
Talks that went late into Thursday night broke down after neither the tea workers' unions nor the garden owners budging from their rigid stands.
West Bengal's estimated 350,000 tea workers have an eight-point charter of demands that includes wage hike, payment of provident fund and gratuity and continuation of certain social benefits.
"The talks could provide no solution, so we have no option but to go in for a sustained agitation, and that can mean only an indefinite strike," said Chitta Dey, the convenor of the coordination committee tea workers' unions.
Dey said the garden owners were refusing to renew a wage agreement with unions that had lapsed in 2003. Planters now want to go in for a production-linked payment structure.
"On June 30 we will decide when we are going to begin the indefinite strike," a workers' union leader said.
Tea garden workers in northern West Bengal, barring the Darjeeling hills, struck work for a day on June 20.
Workers' unions of tea gardens in Darjeeling too have similar demands, but they are heading a separate movement from the estates in the Dooars and Terai region.
The proposed strike wouldn't hit production in the tea gardens of Assam.
India's FY2004-05 tea production was down 2.32 percent to 830.92 million kg from 850.70 million kg in FY2003-04.
FY2004-05 exports were, however, up by 1.51 percent at 185.83 million kg from 183.07 million kg the previous year.
Indian Tea Association, the forum of traders and exporters, said it was targeting exports of 200 million kg in 2005, but the proposed strike could affect production.
India's tea industry, dogged by labour trouble and falling international prices, faces a tough challenge from Sri Lankan and Kenyan producers eating into traditional Indian markets in Russia and the CIS countries.
