A tripartite meet to resolve an ongoing strike by over 300,000 tea garden workers in West Bengal failed Saturday with the indefinite agitation entering its sixth day.

The meeting between the state government, the tea workers' unions and the estate owners to arrive at an acceptable wage revision here failed when the workers refused the wage structure offered by the owners.

The garden owners offered a hike of one rupee every year in daily wages, which the workers rebuffed. The tea labourers currently get a daily wage of Rs.45.90, which is not sufficient to sustain a family, said the unions.

State Labour Minister Mohammad Amin said he would submit a report in this regard to Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee Monday.

The workers' unions said they would enforce a 12-hour shutdown in northern Bengal July 19, as scheduled, along with the strike in the gardens.

Workers in about 346 tea gardens in Dooars area under the banner of Coordination Committee for Plantation Workers (CCPW) in north Bengal struck work since July 11, demanding a revision of wages since the previous wage scale expired on March 31, 2003.

The strike is also supported by another workers' body, the Defence Committee for Plantation Workers' Rights.

The Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF)-affiliated Himalayan Planters Workers' Union has also resorted to an economic blockade in the hill gardens of Darjeeling by preventing the despatch of tea consignments from the gardens.

The strike is a culmination of the tea workers' agitation for the past 27 months for an eight-point charter of demands, including enhanced wages.

Despite several meetings between the workers, garden owners and the state government new wages, which should come into effect from April 1, 2003, were not implemented.

"The planters want to start a production-linked wage system to which we object," said Chitta Dey, convenor of CCPW, an apex body of 18 tea labour unions.

"During the strike, the workers are not getting their wages. They are harming both the industry and themselves," said N.K. Basu of Consultative Committee of Planters' Association.