PM to meet owners Saturday as tea workers continue strike for better pay

C T Online Desk: Two construction workers died after falling from an under-construction building in Agargaon area of the city on Friday.

The deceased were identified as Shahadat Hossain,22, and Md Rokon,32, of Kazipur upazila in Sirajganj district.

The accident happened at the 14-storey building at West Agargaon around 2:45 pm.

Kabir Hossain, a fellow worker of the victims, said the construction work was going on in different floors of the building.

The duo was working standing on a scaffold to build a wall of the building. They accidentally fell to the safety shelf on the second floor after the rope of the scaffold snapped, leaving them critically injured.

They were rushed to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where doctors declared them dead around 4:45 pm, Kabir said.

Inspector Bachchu Mia, in-charge of DMCH Police Outpost said, the bodies were kept in the hospital morgue for autopsies.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will hold talks with tea estate owners Saturday as the workers at the country’s 167 tea plantations continued their indefinite strike for the 18th day Friday for raising their wages to Tk 300 from Tk 120.

The workers abstained from work today, but they did not stage any demonstrations, said Deorachra Tea Garden Panchayat Committee President Subod Kurmi.

Besides, there will be Panchayat committee meetings in 92 plantations of Moulvibazar district on Friday night to discuss the further steps to press for the pay hike.

Meanwhile, PM Hasina is scheduled to meet with representatives from tea plantation workers and owners sides at Ganabhaban on Saturday afternoon, confirmed PM’s Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim.

The movement started on August 9, when workers from 241 tea gardens in the country abstained from work for two hours, demanding Tk 300 as daily wages. As their demand was not met, they decided to go on a full-scale strike from August 13.

After holding meetings with tea garden owners and other stakeholders in the past two weeks, the tea workers’ union agreed to the resumption of work from Monday and got Tk 120 as wages for the time being, but that was rejected by the general workers.

The ongoing strike is the continuation of the previously declared movement by the tea garden workers.