Tea Plantation Labour in India based on data collected from 149 tea estates and it showed that the ratio of casual workers to permanent workers was 50.6 for every 100, In other words, the bigha workers formed around ene-third of the total number of workers employed. Moreover, the bulk of these workers were drawn from the dependents of the permanent worlkers, The plantations tend to employ their bigha workers from the existing pool of the unemployed within the plantation. This is advantageous to them as costs for transporting outside workers is saved. Moreover, the employment of people from within the plantation as bigha, increased the household income of the workers,At the same time the management could diffuse the demand of workers for increase in wages bjr threatening to cut down the employment of bigha if they were pressurised to increase wages. In this case the total household income would decrease. The workers, thereforgj?,@_hqxein.demand'lafgé increases in wages. Most of the work on the plantation is manual in nature. The tea gardens have their own factories for processing the green tea leaves but these factories employ a small amount of the labour force, Of the total number of plantation workers only around 24,000 of them are factory workers. (Ibid: 43) The field workers are engaged in plucking of -tea leaves and activities relating to maintenance of the plantation and its tea bushes, Categories of Workers All tea plantations have four categories of workers: male, female adolescent and children. Male and female workers are those :;.bove the, age of 18 years. Adolescents are workers who have completed the age of 14 years. These three categories are paid the statutory minimum wages, Children are workers below the age of 14 years. Section 2(c¢) of the Plantation Labour Act specifies the category of cifildren as less than 14 years of age but does not specify what the lower age should be However, conventionally plantations do not employ children below 12' years of age. These workers are paid half the wages of adults. The employme . nt of child 1a hour is a‘unique feature in the 1::ea industry, t:‘sg}e:fnally because it is legally permitted. Moreover, the Abolition 0 1Fd Labqur £ct of 1986 bans the employment of children below 15 years in any industry whereas in the tea plantations (where 48 Tea Plantation Workers in West Bengal this Act is not enforced) children can work at much lower ages. The number of children employed is around 11,000 while the number of adolescents are half this figure. (See Table 5) TABLE§ Labour in West Bengal in 1992 (according to categories) Region Darjecling Teral Dooars Total Muale 17,147 16,150 78,853 110,150 Female 217,669 17,350 71,368 116,387 Adolescent 150 861 4378 5389 Children 672 2285 7999 10,956 Total 45,638 36,646 160,598 242,882 SOURCE: Ibid., p. 144. Another unique feature of this industry is the large scale émployment of female workers. The total number of female workers in the State is slightly higher than the numbers of males. (See Table 5) In comparing the three tea districts we find that Darjeeling has a much higher proportion of women workers (approximately 28,000 females and 17,000 males), Terai too has a slightly higher number. of female workers whereas Dooars has more males, Adolescent workers ave those between the ages 15 to 18 years. They number less than the children. There are around 5000 adolescent workers in West Bengal which is roughly less than half the number of child worlkers. One of the reasons for the low number is that these workers are now paid as much. as adult workers. The nature .of work performed by, this category. is different from that of the adult workers, Hence the employers are not inclined to employ workers in this category. There is also a possibility that a proportion of child workers are actually adolescents as in this way the employers do not have to pay them full wages. This may also be a reason for the swelling of the rank of child B workers, The employérs do not face much resistance from the workers when they lower the'category (thatis, from adolescent to child) because in the prevailing situation of high unemployment in­the plantations these workers would be only too glad to get a permanent job even if it means lower wages. ‘ : : 49