The management of a tea garden in Cooch Behar district announced work suspension from Thursday, leaving around 550 workers jobless.

As workers of Sreebas tea estate in Changrabandha under Mekhliganj subdivision reached the garden on Thursday morning, they saw the suspension notice.

“The management has not cleared 21 days of workers’ wages and one month and 21 days of wages of the sub-staff. This (suspension of work) is undesirable. If they (the garden management) had an issue, they should have sat for talks,” said Alamgir Hossain, a leader of Trinamul workers’ front INTTUC.

A worker said the garden should reopen at once or else the tea bushes would dry up. Workers also resorted to protests at the garden and contacted the administration for an intervention.

District assistant labour commissioner Sumanta Roy called a tripartite meeting but no one from the garden’s management came.