Fair Trade aims to foster the sustainable development of producers through instruments like minimum prices, long-term partnerships, and labor and environmental standards. However, as a market-based instrument, Fair Trade cannot fully escape capitalist logics like price competition, especially for “Fairtrade”-certified products that compete with conventional products in supermarkets. Furthermore, as more large-scale enterprises like plantations are certified, questions emerge about how much workers actually benefit from certification. We examine how Fairtrade attempts to address the contradictions between its alternative, moral mission and conventional market logic through the instrument of living wages play out in the hired labor context. We illustrate the practical challenges of implementing universal concepts like fairness in the arena of wage setting at certified Indian tea plantations. The case reveals Fairtrade’s limited capacity to make a difference, especially pertaining to workers’ representation. The question of who is responsible for establishing fairness and on what level it should be done remains unsolved.