TEA PLANTATION LABOUR
(extract from "To pluck and be plucked" by Rojier Verschoor - 1996)
The plantation system
The earliest examples of the plantation system are tea plantations established in the northeast of India around 1835 when tea began to be cultivated and manufactured on a commercial basis. These early plantations were usually in hands of foreign companies that specialized in exporting tropical goods to Europe. The plantation system is a product of colonialism. The coercion, isolation and exploitation of workers of colonial days are still rife on modern tea plantations.
Plantations require large tracts of land and a large labour force. During the early years tea planters in Asia faced acute labour shortages since the areas suitable for growing tea were sparsely populated. Local people were reluctant to work there because of the low wages and miserable living and working conditions. So plantations came to depend on migrant labourers, whose migration often had to be arranged by the tea planters. The influx of various alien, low-caste and tribal people led to the formation of an oppressed labour class. In fact, geographical isolation and social deprivation have been maintained to this day in order to perpetuate the exploitation of tea plantation workers.
Tea plantations are not just economic production units, but rather social institutions which control the lives of their resident work force to a large extent. For the plantations do not just offer employment, they are also responsible for providing housing, water, welfare and many facilities that affect the daily lives of workers. Most tea-producing countries have extensive legislation regarding the conditions on plantations but such laws have proved to be so difficult to implement and monitor that they are often of limited impact. Moreover, plantations are commercial enterprises and therefore not inclined to give top priority to welfare provisions for workers.
The position of labour
Tea plantations are characterized by a rigid hierarchy. Generally speaking the organizational structure is divided into five strata: the owner, management, staff, sub-staff and labourers. The management consists of one manager each for the plantation and the factory plus an assistant manager. Clerical and white-collar workers are regarded as staff, while lower-level supervisors, gang leaders and watchmen all count as sub-staff.
The hierarchy is also reflected in a plantation culture characterized by a strong sense of superiority and inferiority. The social distance between management and labour is huge and their relationship is typically a master-servant relationship. The sense of community is often weak. Even the field workers, who are divided by ethnic origin, housing blocks, castes, family, gender, age, etc lack a sense of unity - of being a group with collective interests. This fragmentation is further intensified by current developments such as the casualization of labour, sub-contracting and preferential treatment. Furthermore, field workers are commonly stigmatized as ignorant and lazy. Sub-staff members like to emphasize that they have to guide and educate these backward workers, while the staff in its turn looks down on the 'unskilled sub-staff'. Such notions legitimize the rigid hierarchy and strict pattern of control on tea plantations; they also serve to frustrate upward social mobility thereby perpetuating the lowly position of labourers.
One of the most remarkable features of tea plantations is the large number of female workers, who constitute about 50% of the total work force. Women are especially active in plucking, which is very labour intensive. Women are believed to be more efficient pluckers than men, but they are given hardly any opportunity for promotion. However, the main reason tea plantations employ such a high proportion of women in plucking, is to keep the wage bill low. Another popular way of reducing wage costs that is frequently practised in Bangladesh, Nepal and North India, is to employ children and adolescents.
Tea plantations in Asia were developed as feudal systems based on extraction of surplus and they have become isolated economic and social enclaves. Managers have been eager to maintain this isolation as it ensures that workers are vulnerable and dependent. There is usually still no effective participation of workers in centralized decision making. In Africa the plantation sector has been developed with a view to improving the countries' cash crop economy and exports. Though adverse effects on the peasant economy and food supply should not be forgotten, the development of tea plantations in East Africa has generally been quite successful and has at least involved a better deal for the labourers than in most Asian countries (Houtkamp 1993; Sivaram and Orao Obura 1989).
Unionism on tea plantations
Trade unions are social movements built on the idea that workers have as much right as employers to participate in any decision making affecting the destiny of the enterprise, and hence their own destiny as an employee of that enterprise. In Asian and African countries the labour movement was founded largely by 'outsiders' with a background in law, politics or social work, whose motives were both humanitarian and political, while the workers in these regions often just needed better educated outsiders to help them organize, bargain and participate in decision making (Ramaswamy 1992).
Under British rule, trade unions were forbidden on tea plantations in India and Sri Lanka and owners had no difficulty excluding 'trouble makers'. In those days plantation managers used beatings, fines and even imprisonment to keep the tea workers quiet and obedient. Such evil and humiliating practices became rather common and have had considerable impact on unionism. At present the main structural problems affecting unionism on tea plantations include fragmentation among unions; lack of any tradition of organization and participation; heavy dependence of workers on employers which prevents them from speaking out; ignorance of workers' rights and unawareness of the fact that many of them face the same problems; low female participation in union duties; failure of unions to promote women's interests; and activists who promote unionism, are often excluded from tea plantations.
In the tea plantation sector bargaining is not a level playing field. Often the position of trade unions is unfavourable and weak, while tea planters exercise considerable power over workers, unions and even over government officials. Nevertheless, the existing trade union structure could be used in a fair trade model, especially in Africa. Most African countries also have councils at plantation level which deals with various plantation affairs (in South Asia these are called 'garden panchayats'). I shall now briefly describe the state of unionism on tea plantations in selected countries.
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