by PATRICK LEJTENYI

The Fair Trade movement has been pretty vocal about making its case against the exploitative working conditions, economic hardships and general misery caused by huge transnational coffee companies. Now, it’s shifting attention to producers of that other popular morning pick-me-up, tea—the second most sipped drink in the world after water.

A new campaign spearheaded this autumn by Equiterre, a Montreal-based, non-profit organization dedicated to ecological sustainability and social justice, in cooperation with Oxfam Quebec and other groups, is looking to get more tea drinkers, especially in the developed world, to choose Fair Trade tea over regular brands. By doing so, they say, tea pickers around the world, but especially in India, will be paid a living wage, free from abuse and harassment.

“The tea industry employs millions of workers around the world, including many women and children,” says Equiterre researcher Karine Filiatrault. “The women who work on plantations are paid less than the men, and there are few if any work norms. In Kenya, for instance, 30 per cent of the tea plantation workers are under 15.”

There is a lot to fault the massive tea selling companies (the biggest one being Unilever, HQ’ed in London, U.K. and Rotterdam, Holland) for in the way they treat workers and the environment. They make heavy use of pesticides and don’t live up to their responsibilities as good corporate citizens, Filiatrault says, while the plantation workers are paid well below national averages.

“Because the workers live on plantations,” Filiatrault says, “the companies are responsible for providing decent salaries, drinkable water, housing and education. When these are not supplied, of course it affects the workers.”

Filiatrault has also found out, through her research, that much of the tea drunk in the world may be actually quite bad for you. “In a report by Que Choisir?, a French magazine published in May 2001, it was found that out of 60 Chinese and Japanese brands of tea analyzed, 27 of them contained high levels of pesticides and traces of lead. It says that these brands of tea are to be avoided.”

For a Fair Trade tea plantation to be certified as such, it must meet several requirements, Filiatrault notes: it must operate in a transparent manner, must not discriminate when hiring in regards to race, gender, ethnicity or religion, must have the resources and ability to export its goods, must protect the environment and work towards community development.

“We also encourage the creation of unions,” Filiatrault says, “and the establishment of collective agreements. Working conditions must be good and salaries must be equal to or above the regional average, or the country’s minimum wage. The plantations must address health and security issues to avoid work hazards.”

According to Equiterre, only 36 Fair Trade tea plantations and 12 small-growers’ associations in Asia and Africa benefited from Fair Trade. And with some three-million tonnes of tea produced annually, there is room for the Fair Trade movement to grow.

To find out where you can buy Fair Trade coffee and tea, visit www.equiterre.qc.ca/english/coffee/repertoire_eng/listecafe.html. :