A sweet cup of tea ??

The tea industry is a booming global business. With 3.5 million tons of tea produced each year – including 1.6 million tons for export. India and Kenya are two of the world's top four tea-producing nations, earning hundreds of millions of pounds in exports each year. But in spite of the massive revenues tea sales generate, workers who pick and pack the leaves face horrendous conditions and earn far below a living wage.

Anti-poverty campaigners have released new research that reveals the true cost of a cup of tea 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. 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.Kenyan tea pickers are even worse off than workers in the tea factories, earning on average just 3,060 shillings (£24.18) a month.

Malnutrition among workers is rife and medical studies have found that 60 per cent of children on tea estates in India are underweight.

In the tea factories of Kenya, 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.

Supermarkets account for over 80% of all 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.The report reveals the continuing failure of UK retailers to improve the conditions of workers employed by businesses in their supply chains, despite their repeated claims to be addressing the issue.

It has been nearly 40 years since War on Want first highlighted the exploitation of tea workers in its report The State of Tea. That report focused on Sri Lanka and found that workers struggled on low wages, were exposed to unsafe conditions and lived in substandard housing. War on Want's new report, A Bitter Cup, focussing on tea workers in Kenya and India, shows a situation that has hardly changed. Based on interviews with workers, it shows that although the tea industry is booming and supermarkets are cashing in, workers are harassed, poorly paid and denied trade union rights on tea plantations and in tea packing factories.