Tea workers on the Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal, India have launched a new stage in their struggle for rights and justice.

When workers protested over the treatment of a tea plucker in an advanced stage of pregnancy who was denied maternity leave and forced to work, management tried to starve them into submission by denying all wages and rations for 3 months. Criminal charges carrying lengthy prison sentences have been filed against 12 workers - including the pregnant woman who collapsed in the field and was denied immediate medical care. Two workers, including her father, have been sacked from their jobs. And management continues to reject the union's longstanding demands, responding instead with more threats.

Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate is owned by Amalgamated Plantations Private Limited, a company 49% owned by Tata Global Beverages, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of India’s powerful Tata Group conglomerate.

Tata's Tetley Tea is 100% Tata-owned, and sources tea from Amalgamated - though not, it claims, from Nowera Nuddy, an argument it has employed to excuse itself from all responsibility for brutal management practices at Nowera Nuddy. Tetley is the second biggest-global tea brand, and a leading member of the UK's Ethical Tea Partnership.

You can support their struggle by sending a message to Tata/Tetley – the power behind local management – telling them to meet the workers’ demands NOW!

To send a message, click http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=551.

Ron Oswald
General Secretary, IUF