"One reason why tea garden employees went back to work despite Covid-19 fears – hunger", 1 May 2020

While industries across the country remained shut because of the nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus, tea garden employees in eastern India went back to work...

Workers point to large gatherings of people at various points of the production process... no hand sanitisers or masks... no health check ups, not even basic thermal screening...

But there was one reason that had driven tea workers across states back to work: hunger... Both Central and state governments have issued guidelines stipulating that workers should be paid wages during the lockdown period... But companies are struggling to pay even these wages... Almost every tea garden worker has the same story – no wages, few savings and rations running out...

Tea garden owners, meanwhile, say it would be a “herculean” task to pay workers wages for the lockdown period and after without any help from the government. “Nobody in the industry has paid the lockdown wages,” said the owner who employs 1,000 workers in Bengal... [One owner] said they would only be able to pay wages after the production and auction of tea...