Tea is a national institution in the UK. But in the tea plantations of India, there lies a tale of poverty, hunger and denial of workers’ rights. Since the late 1990s, at least 60,000 workers have lost their jobs as tea prices have fallen and plantations have closed down. Tens of thousands of workers are threatened by further closures. On the plantations that remain open, workers are suffering wage cuts, tougher picking demands, increasing short-term, insecure contracts and appalling living and working conditions.
Action Aid joined together with Indian Civil Society groups and conducted interviews with workers on Davershola tea plantation owned by Hindustan Lever, a Uniliver subsidiary, and with smallholder tea growers in the Gudalur valley in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, in 2004 and April 2005. The interviews provide a snapshot of the problems facing workers and tea growers throughout the Indian tea sector.