Ahhhh that's... awful? That's Tetley

How's this for sick - workers on plantations in northern India, including children, are paid less than $3 a day to pick our tea.

They toil from dawn until dusk, often spraying industrial pesticides with little protection, and going back to run-down homes that are open to rain and wind -- their only option. Researchers say that overflowing latrines have created “a network of cesspools” within the living area for employees and their families.

But the massive corporation that owns Tetley, Tata Global Beverages, is refusing to take serious action. Instead, it’s only committed to a weak, 15 year plan to boost the industry’s “sustainability” -- failing to acknowledge how bad conditions really are.

In response to reports, the World Bank is launching a full investigation into what it calls the “potentially significant adverse” environmental and social impacts on plantations owned by Tata, an Indian conglomerate that also owns Jaguar Land Rover, operating in more than 80 countries across six continents. Isn't this neat?  A bank has more morals than a corporation! Makes me wonder if we need to have another look at the banking crisis. Was it really the banks behind the foul up or, if we looked behind a closed door, would we find a corporation or two snuggling up with their corruption?

The World Bank’s announcement was followed by the publication of a damning report by the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School, which visited 17 of 24 Tata plantations during two years of its own investigation. Senior plantation managers told the researchers not to listen to the workers because they had “low IQs” and were “like cattle.”

These comments reflect the caste system at work on the plantations in Assam. The tea workers come from two marginalised communities -- Adivasis (indigenous people) and Dalits (the so-called “untouchable” caste). They remain trapped in the lowest employment positions on the plantation, where they are routinely treated as social inferiors, even though discrimination against lower castes is illegal in India.  Looks like Britain isn't the only place where hypocrisy takes place.  Discrimination against disables is meant to be illegal here but it still takes place.  I should know, I sent my childhood being an Asperger Autistic Pariah.

If you find the treatment of the Indian Tea Workers sticks in your craw then you can add your name to the petition being draw up against it by SumOfUs.  Together, we've had major success before against big multinational companies exploiting workers. After months of pressure from SumOfUs members, both Australian brand Woolworths and UK chain River Island signed onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, after the Tazreen and Rana Plaza garment factory collapses -- a huge win for Bangladeshi garment workers. We can take on Tetley.  Our target for this petition is 100,000 and we already have over 95,000.  A few more and we'll be ready to tell Tetley to clean up its act.

And while we are waiting for Tetley to get its finger out, I'm going to invest in a different brand of tea.