As David Cameron and his Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition team touched down in India to try and drum up
more business between the two countries, anti-poverty campaigners released new research that reveals the true cost of a cuppa in Britain.
The report, by War on Want, shows that workers on tea plantations in northern India earn just 1,220 rupees (£15.45) a month – that’s 7p an hour, well below the living wage – for back-breaking work. A living wage in India is 3,500 rupees (£44.34) a month.
Although plantation workers are entitled to one day’s paid leave for every 20 days they work, they say they are being denied this. Malnutrition among workers is rife and medical studies have found that 60 per cent of children on tea estates in India are underweight. The growing use of temporary contracts means that many plantations do not provide benefits such as medical facilities, maternity leave and proper food rations.
Simon McRae, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: “David Cameron will be confronted with the dire poverty that faces millions of Indians. The UK Government has a duty to ensure fair treatment for the workers who supply our tea. It must not allow this exploitation to continue.”
The report, called A Bitter Cup, also shows that tea factory workers in central Kenya supplying British supermarkets toil for up to 74 hours a week for 5,000 Kenyan shillings (£39.52) a month – just half the living wage there.
After three months workers are entitled to permanent contracts, with benefits including sick pay, maternity or paternity leave, and paid annual holidays. But workers are routinely laid off just before this period expires and then rehired, so companies do not have to provide these benefits.
Kenyan tea pickers are even worse off than workers in the tea factories, earning on average just 3,060 shillings (£24.18) a month.
The report, published by War on Want in association with Unite and the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations, quotes one Kenyan picker, a mother of two, as saying: “I do not know what I will do when I get old. What can I hope for?”
Paul Collins of War on Want said: “Supermarkets account for over 80 per cent of all the tea bought in Britain. Yet the people who pick the tea at source get just 1p from every £1.60 box of tea bags sold.”
