Repeatedly and in conference after conference, I have asked representatives from the Fairtrade/FLO – both here in Denmark, in Norway and lately in a video transmission in France what and how the organization can benefit poor slave workers in the post colonial tea gardens in Sri Lanka, India and Kenya.
And no matter how accurate I present my questions any clear answer seems to evaporate as moist on a hot day.
Maybe it’s because that there are none – or to be polite – so few that any talk about “doing a difference” is a joke. What we know is that only some of the workers in a Fairtrade certified tea estate in Sri Lanka got a gas burner some 11 years ago. Last year they got a laundry basket and a cheap Chinese made thermo flask. That’s it. After 15 years as a Fairtrade certified estate that’s not a lot!
In another Fairtrade certified estate in Sri Lanka, the Fairtrade Premium has been used to build a so-called community house. But the doors are locked. The poor workers have to pay rent to open the doors to their own community house.
In other Fairtrade estates, workers have been on strike for almost a year. All they want is a minor raise in the low salary in order to be able to buy some food for the family. No luck – so far.
Fairtrade’s challenge in the tea business is that most estates are owned and organized by multinational companies – more or less – in the exact same way as the in the colonial days some 50-60 years ago. This is not a small farmers association as in many parts of the Coffee business, and it is not small entrepreneurs working at their homes producing handicraft-material sold in small shops in our part of the World. This is a gigantic, multi billion industry.
So what’s new?
Well, what Fairtrade did was to promise me (here we go again) that they would intensify the number of unannounced inspections in the tea estates in order to get a more un-biased look on what’s really going on.
However, Fairtrade had to admit that more than six month after the promise, no single unannounced inspection had been made.
Why is that, I asked?
Well, as the estates have to pay for all the inspections done by the so-called independent assessor, FLO-CERT (Invented by FLO, and stays at the same address in Bonn, Germany) the estate managers did not want to pay. It’s as simple as that.
And here we are at the center of the dilemma.
If you read what Fairtrade promise the consumers and how they work in e.g. the tea estates, where they claim that Premium money is being used to improve the poor conditions, anyone would say: “Well, that’s good – Let’s support that”.
My question is (and that has not yet been answered either):
“If it is so good, why is not every single tea estate in the World a certified member of the “do-good-industry?”
Can someone tell me that?
hum… your last question sounds a bit silly to me: are you that naive?
“If it is so good, why is not every single tea estate in the World a certified member of the “do-good-industry?” it is indeed naive to believe that everyone wants to “do-good” as you say: some tea estate owners certainly prefer keeping revenues and margins for themselves, thus exploiting local peasants, rather than sharing revenues for the benefits of all workers.
Dear Phil
Well, you’re absolutely right that the estate owners wants to keep the profit for themselves and their share holders. However, the consumers that are willing to pay extra for e.g. tea with the Fairtrade-label – still provides profit for the estate owner.
(The real problem is actually that the world market price on tea is dropping due to the increasing production, and that the buyers/agents at the tea auctions is pressing the prices even further down – only to increase their own profit.)
On top of that we saw several examples on how the estate owners also control (sit on) the Premium money that were supposed to be paid to the workers so-called Joint Body. Several workers – also members of the Joint Body – told us, that they had never heard about any Premium money. Others said that the elections of the members of the Joint Body was 100 % organized by the manager in order to only get the “right” workers elected.
Regards
Tom
Just wanna share my view on the job you’re doing on exposing and bringing to light the disparities and suffering that people undergo in third world countries while producing the goods that we buy “in the west”.
I strongly believe that the work that you and the people around you (albeit possibly not many people) are doing deserves the highest admiration and respect.
You have produced what I regard as great journalism in the sense that you bring to light the things that we as consumers in the west are either hesitant to admit or are blindly being misinformed or misled about.
One has to admit that most of us would never accept the working and living standards that these people face when producing the goods we buy if they were forced upon ourselves, or more importantly on the people in our own country or community.
Being an economics student myself (soon finished that is) I can with my hand on my heart tell you that the theoretical justification for socalled “free trade” and the wonders of the “invisible hand” ultimately achieving the greater good for all people, is so full of holes and flawed with assumption about human behaviour and supossed rationality that it may as well be told as a fairy tale.
So I know what I’m talking about when I say that markets cannot be left alone without intervention and scrutiny.
And how good it is to finally stumble upon someone exposing the fact that not even “fair trade” standard necessarily ensures better working conditions and wages for the people that really suffer today (the real working class of today). And how sad it is to realize that the organ set forth to supervise and ensure transparency and fairness
(FLO-Cert) is just a subdivision of the FLO (the ones that set the standards, minimum prices and premiums).
I just want to say: keep up the great work. It’s these kinds of journalistic exposés that are desperately needed.
I literally got a lump in my throat watching both tea plant workers
and garment workers standing barelegged in acid filled baths dyeing cloth.
It’s just inhuman and cannot be right. But that’s just my humble opinion.
I live in Australia and always buy Dilmah tea as all the literature I have read indicates it is an ethical business. Dilmah is not fairtrade and critizes fair trade, quote: “The fair trade stamp on some brand names is largely a marketing strategy!” I have just seen your documentary and as a result am seriously confused. As I have not been to Sri Lanka and do not have the resources to investigate myself are you able to give me any information about Dilmah? I like drinking tea but would prefer to buy a product that does not exploit people.