A day's wage in the tea gardens is 170 taka.
Tea garden workers are demanding 500 taka a day.
A living wage is not one worker's calories. It has to cover a household — food, fuel, medicine, school, and the cost of a rest day.
Daily essentials
Living Basket Cost Audit
Costed for a household of 4 — one wage supports a family, not one adult. Tap a row to see the arithmetic and its source.
Household living wage benchmarks cross-reference prevailing retail rates from two official government bulletins:
At 170 BDT daily wage, the deficit is ৳287 every day.
Tea Workers Emergency Solidarity Fund
Real-time transparent mutual aid for tea worker families enduring strikes and extreme hardship under 170 BDT starvation wages.
150 Years of Indenture: The Struggle for Human Dignity
From colonial indenture and the 1921 Meghna River massacre to the modern 500 BDT living wage movement.
Future of the Movement & The 4 Core Structural Demands
The movement has transformed from a mere daily wage dispute into a historic civil rights struggle led by educated youth for permanent land titles, human dignity, and democratic rights.
Labor Act 2006 Reform
Reclassifying tea workers from plantation agriculturalists to recognized industrial workers with full statutory rights, 8-hour workday limits, and hazard protections.
Permanent Land Rights & Title Deeds
Permanent registered title deeds and settlement of homestead lands inhabited across four generations, ending systemic eviction fears and colonial indenture.
500 BDT Daily Inflation-Linked Wage
A statutory 500 BDT minimum daily cash wage benchmarked against local nutritional basket costs, accompanied by automatic annual inflation adjustments.
Democratic Union & CBA Secret Ballot
Direct, secret-ballot elections for the Central CBA Union and estate panchayats, free from planter cartels and administrative interference.
Tea workers are no longer bonded laborers seeking charity; they are equal partners in national prosperity. No sustainable future for the tea industry exists without these 4 structural pillars.
Garden map
Red marks a garden currently on strike. Marker size reflects workforce.