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The government has fixed a daily minimum wage of Tk 170 for tea workers, according to a gazette notification published Thursday.
The wage for category-A garden workers has been set at Tk170 while it is Tk 169 for category-B garden and Tk 168 for category-C garden.
In August last year, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had directed the tea-estate owners to raise the wage to Tk 170 from Tk 120 amid protests in the gardens across the country.
According to the latest notification, workers will get a 5-per cent raise annually - be it daily or monthly.
After completion of five years in a job, employees other than workers will get one-month gratuity every year. The workers will get pension allowance.
The wage will be reviewed every two years with participation of owners, workers, and government representatives.
The previous wages had been fixed in 2019 and 2020 under an agreement.
As per an agreement signed in October 2020, the wages are supposed to be revised every two years.
The tenure of the wage-related agreement signed in 2019 ended on December 31, 2020 and a negotiation for the 2021-22 tenure was not starting on time.
In protest, around 125,000 workers in the country's 241 tea estates started staging demonstrations since August 9 last year, demanding the daily wage hike to Tk 300.
They abstained from work for two hours every day during August 9-12 before going on a full-scale strike from August 13 last year.
On August 21, some workers' leaders agreed to end the strike, accepting an offer to raise the pay to Tk 145. But most of the workers refused and continued abstaining from work.
Later, PM Sheikh Hasina intervened in the matter and proposed Tk 170 as the daily minimum wage.