Tea plantation workers in West Bengal, represented by Paschim Banga Cha Majoor Samity, have petitioned the ILO under Article 24.
They have alleged systemic labour rights violations despite India’s ratified conventions.
They cite starvation deaths, severe malnutrition, non-payment of wages and dues, lack of minimum wage and discrimination against women and Adivasi workers.
Tea plantations workers in West Bengal have raised issues of labour rights violations with the International Labour Organization (ILO) by invoking the Article 24 of the provisions.
The article enables industrial associations of employers or workers to file a representation against any member state that has failed to secure the effective observance of a ratified ILO convention within its jurisdiction.
On May 1, 2026, the Paschim Banga Cha Majoor Samity (PBCMS) filed the representation citing systemic regime of labour rights violations in the tea plantation sector that continues unabated despite judicial directions and statutory and constitutional mandates.
“Persistent and deliberate failure of the government to secure compliance with binding international obligations under ratified ILO Conventions, including those prohibiting forced labour, mandating equal remuneration, prohibiting discrimination, and protecting the rights of indigenous and tribal populations among others,” PBCMS stated in a press statement.
In 2024, an adivasi tea worker from Bengal had died of starvation. The association then conducted a survey and found severe nutrition deficiencies among 20,000 workers.
The survey had found that 44 per cent of the tea plantation workers surveyed had body mass index (BMI) of less than 17, indicating insufficient food intake, poor diet quality or underlying health issues affecting their overall well-being. About 20 others were reportedly underweight.
PBCMS, in its representation, said the situation is not an episodic lapse but a collapse of the governance system that is pushing thousands of workers into extreme precarity and exploitation.
Non-payment of wages and pending statutory dues, including provident fund and gratuity, of thousands of tea plantations workers were among the issues raised with the ILO.
“The Union Government has failed to invoke even its own statutory powers under the Tea Act, 1953, exposing a willful abdication of responsibility. Simultaneously, the State’s failure to fix and enforce a statutory minimum wage for plantation workers, despite the sector being a scheduled employment, has entrenched a regime of poverty wages that fall far below even the most conservative estimates of a living wage, rendering workers’ constitutional and human rights illusory,” they said in the statement.
It underlined that vulnerable groups remain highly exposed to structural discrimination. Women, PBCMS said, were lowest paid despite being the backbone of the plantation workforce while Adivasi and other tribal communities traditional associated with the plantation works since colonial regimes continued to be denied with basic rights of land and housing.
This discrimination has kept the population landless despite generations of labour and inhabiting the land. It further said that the recent commercial diversion of plantation land for tourism and related activities has increased the threat of displacement, raising grave concerns for dispossession.
PBCMS also alleged that the systematic dismantling of labour law enforcement, with breakdown of administrative measures and inspection mechanisms. Inspectors have been prevented from conducting independent oversight and non-compliant employers have been emboldened, they added.
This regulatory retreat has been accompanied by a disturbing pattern of retaliation against workers and trade union members, including the filing of false criminal cases, intimidation, and punitive disciplinary action aimed at crushing collective resistance and silencing dissent, the statement said adding, “These actions strike at the very core of freedom of association and collective bargaining, principles t at form the bedrock of international labour law.”
The union body added that despite the issues raised with the constitutional court and domestic institutions that safeguard the rights of the workers, the situation has continued to remain poor.
In its representation, PBCMS has sought international intervention, urging ILO to hold the government accountable for its continuing failure to give effect to ratified conventions and to refer the grave violations of trade union rights to the Committee on Freedom of Association.
PBCMS reiterates that dignity of labour cannot remain a slogan confined to ceremonial observances. For the workers of the tea plantations, it remains a distant and denied reality and one that now stands exposed before the international community, it concluded.