India: Tetley starves workforce

Tata, the transnational Indian conglomerate whose wholly-owned subsidiary Tetley makes the world famous Tetley Teas, has taken 6500 people hostage through hunger, IUF.org said on November 12. The se include 1000 tea plantation workers and their families on the Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal, India. The workers have been locked and denied wages for all but two days' work since early August

Management of the plantation, in which Tata holds the largest ownership share and exercises control, is seeking retaliation for a worker protest in August against its treatment of an eight-months' pregnant worker who was denied maternity leave, forced to pluck tea, and then denied adequate medical treatment.

Workers want the estate reopened and their wages paid, but reject the suspension of eight workers singled out for protesting vile abuses. They refuse to renounce their right to peacefully protest abusive exploitation.

Visit www.iuf.org to send a message to the CEOs of Tata and Tetly in support of the demands of the Nowera Nuddy Estate (Tata Tea) Workers' Action Committee.

From GLW issue 819