Siliguri: A joint forum of tea garden trade unions in northern West Bengal on Monday turned down the state government's proposal to accept the three-year agreement on wages.
The forum at its meeting passed a resolution that said the government's draft proposal submitted earlier completely "ignored" the workers' demand for introducing minimum wages backed by variable dearness allowances as was decided in earlier tripartite wage agreements.
"We have thus rejected the three-year agreement for the wage increment that the draft talks of," said forum convenor Ziual Alam.
The resolution signed by 23 political parties was sent to the labour commissioner.
Alam urged the government to initiate suitable steps and complete all formalities that would facilitate implementation of the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 for setting the basic wage and dearness allowance by June 30, 2015
