IUF Tea Unions Build Coordination, Cooperation
(By IUF-UITA-IUL News Bulletin n. 1-2 1996)
Following on the decisions of the First Agricultural Workers Trade Group Conference (see NB 1-2/1995), the IUF is building solidarity and cooperation among unions in the industry by bringing together tea workers' unions in the world's principal tea-producing regions. The Conference designated tea, together with coffee, sugar, cocoa and bananas as target sectors for international organizing geared to sharing information and resources and coordinating collective bargaining and the defense of trade-union and human rights. Initial meetings have been held in Africa and India; a global meeting bringing together plantation and processing workers is planned for later this year.Africa
Poor pay, bad housing and poor health and safety standards were among the issues identified by tea unions as the major problems and organizing priorities facing tea workers at the IUF's first African regional tea meeting, held in Arusha, Tanzania, from October 16-20, 1995. Participants were present from IUF-affiliated unions in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia plus observers from Malawi and South Africa.
Opening the meeting on behalf of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Claire Lwehabura welcomed the decision to hold the event in Tanzania as "a move to support the ongoing transition in the trade union system of the host country", as the development of independent trade-union structures was "not quite over yet".
The meeting focussed on identifying the main problems facing workers and their unions, sharing experiences and information on the tea sector in Africa and exploring the possibility of a code of conduct for tea plantations. Unions felt strongly that any such code should not substitute for collective bargaining but should give unions the space to organize and to strengthen their collective bargaining ca pacity.
Basic pay rates varied from USD 10 per month in Uganda to USD 30 per month in Zimbabwe, Kenya and South Africa.
The meeting identified the main pesticides used routinely on tea plantations, some of which were on the "Dirty Dozen" list of the most toxic pesticides.
The situation of seasonal and casual workers was another key discussion item with unions agreeing in principal that these workers had to be organized to win for them equal rights with full-timers. This could discourage employers from trying to further increase casualization in the industry.
The possibility of linking with organizations promoting fair trade was also de bated. So far, many fair trade organizations have concentrated on guaranteeing fair prices for small farmers producing plantation crops like cocoa and coffee, but recently there has been some work done on establishing criteria for fair trade tea from plantations employing workers. Unions felt that the emphasis here should be on fair trade groups working with unions to strengthen freedom of association and collective bargaining agreements.
South Asia
Unions organizing tea plantation workers, tea estate staff workers and tea processing workers in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka met in Calcutta from November 6 to 10. The meeting brought together unions from the full spectrum of South Asia's politically divided labour movement, including tea unions affiliated to the national centers AITUC, CITU, HMS, INTUC and NLO in India and NTUC and GEFONT in Nepal.
Tea plantation workers in South Asia constitute, for the most part, a captive, migrant workforce whose desperate situation is exacerbated by the geographical and social isolation maintained by the employers. Poverty wages make it necessary for two or three family members to work in the plantations to achieve a subsistence minimum. Reports to the meeting noted the presence of an estimated 75.000 child labourers in the Indian tea industry (with the highest number in Assam) and a substantial number as well in Nepal. Protective legislation was either inadequate (India's Plantation Labour Act authorizes the employment of children 12 years or older) or not enforced. Protection against agri-chemicals and pesticides was likewise inadequate or non-existent, with workers suffering the effects of widespread water and ground water contamination.
In India, political fragmentation had seriously weakened the unions' bargaining strength, despite the relatively high level of unionization. To build greater unity, the unions present agreed to oppose the presence of multiple unions in tea gardens and packing units and to work together around the following key points:
- low wages;
- rising casualization;
- increasing women's representation in trade union structures;
- child labour;
- establishing a network of union occupational health and safety officials to deal with the problem of pesticides;
- developing the exchange of information pertaining to the living and working conditions of plantation and processing workers and collective bargaining.
At a special session of the meeting, Martin Kunz of Transfair International, a European-based fair trade organization, and Annie van Wezel from the Dutch union center FNV introduced a discussion on fair trade issues and consumer action and their potential links to plantation workers' unions.
The possibility for unions organizing processing workers to meet with the plantation workers' unions provided an important first step in building union links throughout the tea chain. Following the meeting, the All India Brooke Bond Employees' Federation, one of the participating unions, at its Federation Working Committee decided to initiate visits to tea gardens owned by Brooke Bond (a Unilever subsidiary) to discuss cooperation with the plantation workers' unions.