When you drink your chai, think about these people.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/world/asia/on-indian-tea-plantations-low-wages-and-crumbling-homes.html?ref=world&_r=0

The International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank partly funded by the United States government, lent the new company legitimacy with a sizable investment. In approving funding, the International Finance Corporation stated that Amalgamated promised to “create opportunities for people to escape poverty and improve their lives.”

But that early optimism has evaporated. Despite pledges of better working and living conditions, Ms. Munda, 45, finds herself living a life not dissimilar to that of her grandparents. Her family shares a cramped and crumbling house with three other families. The well outside is filled with murky water, and a nearby latrine is rank and overflowing. Ms. Munda says she has been emptying a bucket filled with the water that leaks through her roof for 15 monsoon seasons.

In interviews at two of the company’s plantations, workers said their overseers treated them harshly and denied them basic benefits. Ms. Munda said that to qualify for a paid sick day, workers had to report to the plantation clinic three times a day to prove their illness. Raju Mantra, the son of two plantation workers, said that protective equipment was withheld from workers.

“When big people come to visit, they give it to us,” he said of equipment like gloves and masks to protect from pesticides, “but then they put it back in storage, saying that if we wear it every day, it will wear out.”

Tea worker’s rights groups say the Plantations Labor Act has perpetuated the feudal system created by British companies when they first developed the plantations. Today’s plantation workers descend almost exclusively from tribal populations transplanted in the colonial era, having inherited jobs from their parents. The manual labor they perform has changed little in 150 years. Last December, women in saris moved slowly down the rows of bushes, pruning them with machetes.

Workers said managers treated them with contempt. A group of women at one plantation said their supervisors used language with them so vulgar they could not repeat it. Mr. Mantra later said that local stereotypes of tribal people as promiscuous figure heavily in taunts, and workers who show up late are sometimes asked, “Were you having sex all night, and that’s why you’re late?”

The Columbia report said that management warned researchers not to trust workers because they were “just like cattle.”

Leaving the plantations is only a vague dream for most. Local advocacy groups say schools on plantations go up to only the fourth grade, and in some schools, there are up to 250 students for each teacher. Most tea workers remain illiterate, the advocates say. Beyond the fences of Assam’s plantations, where tea workers seldom go, there is little demand for unskilled labor.

The poverty that besieges tribal populations throughout India more harshly circumscribes mobility for those on Assam’s plantations. Many here said they would like to continue going to school or seek care at hospitals outside their plantations, but transportation is too costly for those who earn so little. Plantation workers like Ms. Munda can make 89 rupees ($1.43) a day picking tea leaves or performing other tasks, provided they meet their productivity quotas. Mr. Mantra said that to get by, most tea workers ate simple meals of rice sprinkled with salt most days, splurging for eggs or fish only on paydays.

That is why I drink coffee.

"The manual labor they perform has changed little in 150 years. Last December, women in saris moved slowly down the rows of bushes, pruning them with machetes."

>>> They should be sitting in front of computers (through Govt. quotas) and drinking tea imported from abroad

Seva Lamberdar wrote:"The manual labor they perform has changed little in 150 years. Last December, women in saris moved slowly down the rows of bushes, pruning them with machetes."

>>> They should be sitting in front of computers (through Govt. quotas) and drinking tea imported from abroad

>>>Seva,

These people and their children have no way of getting out of that miserable life. I think GOI should force the companies which own these plantations to make sure the children of these workers have access to primary and secondary education so they can have a better life than their parents.

89 rupees? How is that possible? Isn't the minimum guaranteed wage like 150 or 200 rupees? My parents pay 250 Rs a day for agricultural labor.