Labor Conditions

        Tea plantation workers are typically excluded outside of their economic mistreatment because of their ethnic and caste identities, further pushing them to the margins. Indigenous people have been the sole tea laborers for the last five generations at least, and reliance on a single labor source is causing a shortage. Low literacy rates coupled with geographic isolation only exacerbates this separation from dominant socio-cultural networks once again leaving them out of political decision making that directly affects their daily lives. Salam refers to the high rates of child marriages on tea estates, inadequate food provisioning, and inadequate medical and educational resources supports this claim. This is “a continuation of colonial-era labor hierarchies, which have been perpetuated in postcolonial governance structures.”^[1] The economic relationship between tea estate owners and laborers is referred to as modern-day slavery, which Shahadat et al. examine in their research on tea plantations. Shahadat et al. expand upon this in how discriminatory laws and the established relationship between manager and laborer has created an isolated and captive workforce.^[2]  Laborers have their work, living, and recreation all on the tea plantation, creating a “‘total institution.’"^[3]

        Shahadat et al. visited one tea plantation from 2011 to 2020, spending 3 or 4 days a week for 12 weeks at each site. Through observation and interviews with laborers, they learned the usual working hours, how tasks were allocated, and the conditions. Tea plantations are required to provide education or childcare for laborers’ children, which would not be an option outside of the plantation due to their caste, but Shahadat et al. did not find any of these options provided on the plantations they visited. Spraying pesticides, working barefoot, and the physical pain from working in the fields created numerous health issues that went unaddressed. Shahadat et al. witnessed verbal and emotional abuse, with managers threatening workers with law enforcement involvement to get obedience; a completely dehumanizing act made normal. Even in the face of these extreme physical and isolating conditions, laborers do not leave. When prompted about this, one laborer replied, “‘This is our birthplace. We don’t know people outside the plantations and with not enough money in our pocket, where to go? What if something happened to us while outside the plantation?’”^[4] Slavery is perpetuated on tea plantations through regulatory mechanisms like low wages, abuse, and reliance on the plantation for all aspects of life.  

Gendered Labor

        Migrant women comprise the majority of the tea plantation workforce in Bangladesh.^[5] Reports place women at 75% of the tea plantation workforce in Bangladesh.^[6] These women were lured from poor, famine stricken areas of India and Bangladesh to come work on plantations far from home, leaving them with no family nearby or connections to the land.^[7] This creates a captive workforce, paid extremely low wages. Women and families are preferred by plantation owners because they guarantee a generational labor force. Women are further stereotyped and preferred because they could be paid less, “their sensitive fingertips suitable for tea plucking and lower inclination to unionize.”^[8] Women tea plantation workers in Bangladesh have been “at disadvantage, deprived, under-served, exploited and an alienated group.”^[9] Living and working conditions include unsanitary facilities and unsafe drinking water, leading to a myriad of water borne diseases in addition to injuries from working in the fields.^[10] For pregnant laborers, they are meant to receive 16 weeks of paid maternity leave and 8 weeks after birth before returning to work, all under the Bangladesh Labour Act of 2004. However, pregnant women rarely receive any time off, let alone weeks of paid leave. A plantation medical officer will approve them for work within one week of childbirth, especially during peak picking season.^[11] This is one example of the ways women tea workers endure further discrimination, making their lives and experiences significantly worse than their male counterparts.  

        Rahman et al. evaluated a previous study regarding women tea workers, whether they felt they worked hard and if they had any company satisfaction. They found that women in particular had very constrained livelihoods because “by day time they are fully under the control of the garden management and after working hour they are fully under the control of their husbands.”^[12] During the day, women only picked tea leaves, the more physically demanding task, whereas men had a diverse set of tasks. Being the pickers, women are the determinants of how productive the garden is on a given day, making them pivotal to any production. Yet, they are paid less than their male counterparts. High illiteracy rates compound this economic distinction, putting women at a worse disadvantage. Tea workers are being left behind economically, socially and politically.         

        An important study was conducted in 2015 by Kamruzzaman et al. (Livelihood…) where they conducted a series of interviews with 120 women at Doldoli Tea Garden to determine an improvement in livelihood conditions for women tea workers through physical, financial, natural, human, and social capital. They found that livelihood status had improved moderately, with improved social and physical capital, whereas financial capital worsened. Ultimately, they concluded that the livelihoods of women tea workers was not satisfactory. This satisfaction varied greatly in different sectors of their lives. Improved social capital coinciding with worsened financial capital did not actually improve the women’s perceptions of their livelihoods, and their opinion is the most important. The researchers call for raised wages to support financial capital, an intervention by the government to supplement their nutrition and diet, and the workers and their children need reliable and quality education.^[13] Ultimately, the women’s lack of improvement in all categories except social and physical is unacceptable.

Adding to this lack of improvement, Aktar found that women are not empowered in the home either. Aktar et al. conducted in depth interviews with women tea estate workers in 2019 on their roles in their families, to what degree does their self-reliance, independence, and freedom of speech affect family decisions. Forced labor, inadequate housing, poor wages, and unsanitary living and working conditions are daily problems. The study found that some women had decision making power in their homes, and some did not as their husbands made all decisions. This varied greatly also in whether their wages were to be spent at their discretion or their husbands.^[14] Minimal power in making their own choices is not enough and needs improvement.

        Due to the separation of conditions between men and women workers, women have begun to employ survival strategies, investigated by Kamruzzaman et al. (Survival…).^[15] These survival strategies included health/hygiene, financial, housing, and food. The women surveyed struggled to find survival strategies for food provisioning for their families. They tried to earn money outside of their work on the tea estate and relied on indigenous and traditional methods. 70% of the women used a moderate amount of survival strategies, showing how they must work extra hard just to survive in their jobs and current economic statuses.

        Reproductive labor of women tea workers ensures their and their family’s survival, inextricably linked to their productive labor as tea leaf pickers. The persisting impact of colonialism in the tea industry in Bangladesh perpetuates the systemic economic, social, and caste inequalities these women face. Their working conditions are abysmal, with little room for improvement via unions, demonstrations, or self advocation. Focusing on this group and collecting the most accessible materials about their livelihoods promotes awareness, with the intention that it leads to change.