What can the tea sector learn about sustainability from tomatoes?

Low wages, harassment, unsafe working conditions and limited worker representation remain serious challenges across the global tea industry.

Despite years of audits, certification schemes and corporate commitments, many tea workers still struggle to have their concerns heard or their rights protected.

Florida’s tomato industry faced similar problems. The Fair Food Program offers a different approach, one in which workers themselves decide what needs to change and have a direct role in making sure those changes happen.

It also challenges the idea that improving working conditions is solely the responsibility of producers. By securing legally binding agreements with major food companies, workers showed how buyers can be held accountable for conditions further down their supply chains.

For the tea industry, this raises important questions about how workers can have a stronger voice, how companies can take greater responsibility and what it takes to achieve meaningful improvements.

Drawing on research into Florida’s tomato industry, the webinar will explore how migrant farm workers organised to challenge exploitation and develop a system that has improved working conditions.

The webinar will examine:

• How the Coalition of Immokalee Workers used collective action, including a nationwide boycott of Taco Bell, to secure better pay and commitments from major food companies.
• How the Fair Food Program works, including worker-led standards, legally binding agreements and independent monitoring.
• Why workers are often best placed to identify unfair practices with examples from Florida’s tomato industry.
• How the programme has tackled harassment, abuse and retaliation, giving workers safer ways to raise concerns and seek redress.
• The challenges of changing long-established workplace practices and building trust between workers, growers and buyers.
• What other approaches, including collaboration between companies on responsible sourcing, can teach us about improving conditions in agricultural supply chains.

This webinar offers an opportunity to learn from an approach that has delivered real improvements for agricultural workers and consider what those lessons could mean for tea.

Whether you work for a tea company, producer, trade union, NGO, certification body or another organisation involved in the sector, you will gain insights into:

• Strengthening worker voice: How involving workers in setting and enforcing labour standards can lead to more effective protection of their rights.
• Improving accountability: How legally binding agreements and responsible purchasing practices can encourage companies to take greater responsibility for working conditions.
• Making complaints systems work: Why protecting workers from retaliation is essential if they are to feel safe reporting harassment, abuse or unfair treatment.
• Moving beyond traditional approaches: What worker-driven social responsibility can offer alongside existing auditing, certification and corporate sustainability programmes.
• Applying lessons to tea: Practical ideas and questions to help your organisation consider how to strengthen worker participation and improve human rights in its own operations or supply chains.

There will also be time for questions and discussion about the opportunities and challenges of applying these lessons to tea.

Dr Alysha Shivji is a Research Professor at EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, where she teaches business ethics, sustainability, corporate governance and AI ethics.

Her research focuses on worker-led approaches to improving labour conditions, business and human rights and social justice.

Alysha was also a Research Associate at THIRST and contributed to our human rights impact assessment of the tea sector. Her doctoral research at Alliance Manchester Business School examined how workers in the agricultural and food sectors can seek remedy when their rights are violated.

Alysha has worked with Apple and Stanford University on research relating to sustainable supply chains and efforts to tackle human trafficking. She holds a BA and MA in Sociology from Stanford University.

The low price of tea

Low prices paid for tea put pressure on producers’ ability to provide decent wages and working conditions. Florida’s tomato workers faced similar challenges with growers arguing that low prices paid by major buyers prevented them from increasing wages. Their successful campaign shows how holding buyers accountable can help improve workers’ earnings.

Power imbalances

Tea workers often have little say over their pay, working conditions or the decisions that affect their lives. The Fair Food Program shows how collective action and worker-led standards can help shift the balance of power, giving workers a stronger voice and greater influence over their working conditions.

Attitudes towards workers

Disrespectful and discriminatory attitudes can allow harassment, exploitation and abuse to continue. The Fair Food Program demonstrates how worker education, stronger protections and meaningful accountability can challenge these attitudes and help create safer and more respectful workplaces.

Over-reliance on certification

Audits and certification schemes do not always uncover human rights abuses, particularly when workers fear speaking out. Worker-led standards, independent monitoring and effective complaints systems offer another way to identify problems and ensure they are addressed.

Competition over collaboration

Many problems in agricultural supply chains are too widespread for individual companies to tackle alone. Agreements between workers, growers and major buyers show how collaboration can improve working conditions across an industry, rather than leaving responsibility to individual producers.

Laws and policies

Even where laws exist to protect workers, poor enforcement can leave them vulnerable to exploitation. The Fair Food Program shows how legally binding agreements, independent monitoring and protection against retaliation can help ensure workers’ rights are respected in practice.

Deeply ingrained resistance to change

Long-established working practices and attitudes can make improvements difficult. Florida’s tomato industry shows how sustained worker organising, education and accountability can challenge entrenched practices and bring about lasting improvements in working conditions.