Bangladesh: Over 400 permanent tea workers not paid for a month, facing acute food insecurity and starvation
အကျဉ်းချုပ်
Date Reported: 3 Jan 2022
Location: Bangladesh
Companies
Baikunthapur Tea Estate - Supplier , Unilever - Buyer , Lipton Teas and Infusions (formerly ekaterra) - BuyerAffected
Total individuals affected: 2409
Workers: ( 409 - Location unknown , Tea , Gender not reported )Issues
Wage Theft , Right to Food , Adequate Living StandardsResponse
Response sought: Yes, by BHRRC
Story containing response: (Find out more)
Action taken: Baikunthapur Tea Estate supplied to Unilever, according to the BHRRC Tea Supply Chain Tracker; Unilever provided a response to a request for comment from the Resource Centre, informing that it did not supply from the estate in 2022. Ekaterra - Unilever's tea business which was sold to the CVC Capital Partners Fund VIII in July 2022 - also provided a response.
Source type: News outlet
"Tea workers passing hard days", 3 January 2022
Over four hundred workers of Baikunthapur Tea Garden in Habiganj's Madhabpur upazila with their family members have been passing days in hardship as they are not getting paid their wages or receiving rations for nearly a month.
During a visit to the teagarden area this correspondent saw, due to the closure of the rationing, about 409 permanent workers of the tea garden along with their 2,000 family members are facing acute food crisis and living on either starving or half-fed.
[...]
Later, when other tea workers protested the eviction notice and spoke in Dilip's favour, the garden authority verbally warned some and told them that they would lose their job if they continue their agitation.
[...]
But, in the face of continuous agitation by the workers, the authority concerned closed the tea garden on December 8.
In addition, they also stopped the wages and rations of the workers from the same day...