Labor Conditions in Sri Lanka’s Tea Industry

        Sri Lanka has seven major tea producing regions:Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Dimbula, Uva, Uda Pussellawa, Ruhuna, and Sabaragamuwa.^[1] All seven of these regions underwent a change in management structure in the 1970s during land reforms. These management types are now either plantation companies, private estates, or individual farmers. Each type has a different structure entirely, depending on if it is a large regional corporation for plantation companies or a smaller privately owned estate. A study conducted by Yuko Fukuda aimed to understand the factors influencing educational disparities in tea cultivation communities.^[2] Children in the private estates had the lowest school enrollment rates. Migration[?] factored into this, adding to even lower enrollment. Families constantly relocate to different private estates chasing higher wages. This instability disrupts children’s education. A lower household income exacerbates this instability, and researchers found education rates to be similarly low across all three management structures. Fukuda’s previous research on the three types of management structure served as the basis for this conclusion, as their 2022 study found that children on private estates were more likely to have a low quality of life and suffer poorer education.^[3] 

        In a study focusing on musculoskeletal pain and environmental health hazards for tea pluckers, Chandrasekara et al. surveyed 378 tea pluckers and found a high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain, especially in the lower back. Leech bites were another health issue faced as a part of their daily work environment. Overall, age, stress, and how long they had been a tea plucker were all associated with musculoskeletal pain: participants who had worked for over 10 years were two times more likely to have musculoskeletal pain than their counterparts.^[4] Not only is income insufficient for proper nutrition, but the labor itself is specifically back breaking.

        All of these conditions point to modern slavery, as Christ et al. evaluate in their 2025 case study in Sri Lanka to understand modern slavery risk and knowledge.^[5] Christ et al. express concern that Sri Lanka cannot meet the regulatory(?) demands in Western importing countries for products certifiably not made with forced labor. Looking into how corporations combat modern slavery, most management respondents did not have sufficient knowledge of modern slavery and therefore would be unable to assess the modern slavery risks even though they also agreed it was an issue they expected to impact the tea sector. Additionally, 83% of respondents believed modern slavery is probably a problem in the Sri Lankan tea industry, with only 9% stating it is definitely a problem. Once again, this uncertainty is likely based on a lack of knowledge. Christ et al. recommend educating the tea business community to safeguard against modern slavery and repeating this research by speaking with workers rather than management. They also recommend utilizing the Sri Lanka Tea Board for this education.

        Researcher Huw Thomas aimed to evaluate the degree of worker power and consumer power in the tea industry, looking at Sri Lanka as a case study, leading to a more optimistic evaluation of worker power. Thomas criticizes private governing bodies Rain Forest Alliance (RA) and the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) because these certification programs did not improve working conditions, and plantations with RA or ETP certifications were more likely to have children less than 17 years old working. RA and ETP workers were also less likely to have seen a labor inspector in the last six months. Rather, plantations and organizations that collaborated with the International Labour Organization had better worker conditions and worker power, with less child labor and better workers’ rights. Based on a questionnaire for workers, student research assistants learned that there were very few cases of indecent work on the six surveyed plantations. Although women were the majority of the sample at 71%, gender was not associated with indecent work. 95% of women who had become pregnant received 12 weeks of paid maternity leave. Thomas admits the limitation that their findings are likely underestimating labor rights violations because plantation employers had to grant them access. However, they still found that tea plantation workers had decent jobs due to strong unions, a multi-employer collective bargaining agreement, and progressive labor laws.^[6] 

Women’s Labor in Tea Production

        Women are(?) recruited to work on Sri Lankan tea plantations more so than men because they could be paid even less. Today, women tea pickers are paid daily rates and productivity-based payments, meaning that not only is their everyday life vulnerable to the whims of management, but so is their income.^[7] Workers must pluck a certain amount of leaves everyday, and are paid more if they go above this rate. Their base rate then falls below what is needed for a decent standard of living, a similar logic to tip wages in the food service industry. Neither is sufficient. The tea industry is entirely reliant on the labor of women. Even with the extreme reliance on their labor, these jobs are precarious. If they take a sick day, their positions are replaced before they come back to work. The environmental working conditions, as previously stated, are dangerous. Women face leeches, snakes, and wasps on a daily basis. The harsh cold weather must be endured; there are no breaks in the winter. The back breaking labor includes climbing large hills multiple times a day to pluck leaves, bending over constantly to pluck, skin pain from the tea bushes, and more.^[8] Without proper medication facilities, the women must endure pain without intervention.

        In addition to educational disparities for the children of plantation workers, the workers and their families face poor nutrition and anemia. Selvaratnam evaluated how nutrition impacted the productivity of Sri Lankan tea pluckers with a sample of 304 women. Although this study surrounded the women’s ability to work and be productive, its results are telling of how these women do not have access to enough nourishing food. The productivity was based on how many tea leaves they plucked in kilograms, but again, this perpetuates their value solely as agents of capitalism. Instead, critically viewing this article as a resource of nutritional outcomes is more valuable. More than 90% of those surveyed were anemic. The researchers blame this on the women surveyed, explaining that “poverty and ignorance” compounds the low iron consumption along with “bad dietary habits,” “lack of education,” and “repeated pregnancies.”^[9] Although their study was thorough and these conclusions do coincide with the need for broader nutritional education, placing blame on their participants does not help and only perpetuates the problematic stereotype that people are malnourished because they are ignorant. More often than not, this is an issue of access, time, and availability. These women are working 8 hour plus days, taking care of their families, leaving them without time to care for tehemselvess. They are not paid enough to provide holistically for themselves or their families, and lack the time it takes to find, buy, and prepare meals.

Sri Lanka currently has collective bargaining agreements that protect worker welfare and labor rights, but researchers repeatedly show that these protections are not effective. This especially came to light during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Azmi investigates the experience of women returnee migrant workers during the COVID-19 era. Many women were working away from home at tea estates, often in the Middle East, and had to return home and seek employment. This tea industry work was physically and mentally risky, low paid, and without social benefits. Azmi interviewed ten women who were returnee migrant workers, finding that the pandemic emphasized and worsened pre-existing vulnerabilities. The women began home gardening, raising poultry, and relying on local charities and NGOs to provide for their families as the burden of financial responsibility shifted to them as male family members continued to work away from home. The pandemic highlighted the urgent need for improving the tea sector. Women face continued objectification at work and harassment. They are verbally abused for taking a break, talking to fellow laborers, and especially if they do not collect enough tea leaves.  

Ranasinghe et al. conducted a seven month ethnography at a Sri Lankan tea plantation and observed a variety of violent and coercive controls. This included shouting, fear, strict punishments, unequal payments, and discrimination.^[10] For example, a male worker could leave at 1:30pm if he finishes his work quota, but a woman would work for the entire eight hours and not be able to pluck the right amount, and only receive half of her pay. Women face objectification at work and harassment. They are verbally abused for taking a break, talking to fellow laborers, and especially if they do not collect enough tea leaves. If they do reach the day’s minimum, their wages are cut in half or they are not even paid, leaving the women’s and their families’ financial stability in constant flux.^[11] More so than their male counterparts, women play a triple role in tea plantations as workers, wives, and mothers. Unpaid reproductive labor in the home adds to the struggles women tea plantation workers face.

Discrimination goes beyond gender discrimination to include presumed illiteracy. Although most workers are literate today, they still have to sign for any payment or days work with a thumb impression, the same as during the colonial era.^[12] 

However, within this post colonial workplace, women are also resisting. Women often speak out or speak back to managers, resist work or harassment by changing jobs or being absent until a grievance is resolved, have created compromises in punctuality, and seek opportunities for upward mobility. In focusing on a subaltern group, women tea pluckers, Ranasinghe et al. make visible their systemic oppression in how they are treated differently from male counterparts while revealing where they were fighting back.

Women tea pluckers navigated and resisted gender expectations, found in Gnanapragasam’s research from 2020.^[13] Tamil women from South India achieved greater autonomy at home and work through different acts of resistance. The word “Ūr” translates to “one’s real home” and many tea workers feel this way about the plantations where they work.^[14] Although they do not own the land, they lay claim to the land in other ways to feel a sense of belonging and to improve their lives. By creating community on the plantation, knowing the meaning of environmental changes for soil or plant growth, and being able to tell time without a clock all contribute to transforming the plantation “from a space of economic exploitation into a space with personal significance.”^[15] Women advocated for themselves for identification cards, making them permanent workers and in less of a position of precarity. They also advocated for themselves to have better communication with management, leading to group meetings between workers and managers. Understanding Indian Tamils’ struggles on Sri Lankan tea plantations has helped to destigmatize and make visible the efforts these women must go to in order to belong and be autonomous.

        A primary source from 1984 by the Colombo: Women's Education and Research Centre titled exploitation of women on the plantations: tamil women workers on the tea estates of sri lanka, details further activism and resistance from Tamil women workers. Colombo produced this pamphlet in English, Sinhala, and Tamil to “help and support the struggle of the women on the plantations of Sri Lanka to win their basic human rights and democratic rights at work, within their homes and in Sri Lankan society.”^[16] This powerful pamphlet explains the modern plight of Tamil women tea workers better than any piece of academic research because it was intended to reach and impact the masses. I urge you to reach the pamphlet itself, linked as a resource on this project.

According to Colombo, Sri Lankan women have high literacy rates, low maternal mortality rates, and high attendance in schools, however, this is with the exception of Tamil women on tea plantations. Tamil women are doubly exploited, for their waged labor on plantations and for their unpaid labor in the home, a repeated example of their oppression. The unequal pay, the controlling of her labor by her husband, the long hours, low literacy rates, poor housing, and more are all detailed in this pamphlet as they have been detailed above from previous research. Reading this pamphlet will only serve to add a detailed account of Tamil women tea plantation workers’ lives. Unlike the academic research that dominates this literature review, this pamphlet ends with a definitive call to action. Colombo asks readers to discuss women’s problems, publicize women’s demands, and agitate for the demands while pressuring unions and political groups. The first step in improving the lives of women tea workers for Tamil women in Sri Lanka and across the globe begins with the discussion and publicization of their livelihoods. This literature review hopes to start that first step.