A heated debate is going on in India whether or not the tea worker is paid ‘minimum wage’ as prescribed by the annals of Government. The employers state vehemently that they are doing their best on the tripartite level on a platform which saves them from the “Minimum Wages Act” by way of an addition of other fringe benefits to the mutually agreed wage.But the debate does not stop there, and we at Siliguri are making it a point to break away from the past of the slavery model and take it up during our 2015 November edition of India Tea Forum. Establishment of a Tea Park here invited entrepreneurs to set up units to add value to tea to be able to realise higher returns from their sales in order to improve the state of affairs.
For the last one hundred years we have not been able to add anything else to the Indian tea industry other than the wheat grinding rollers used as CTC machines (which have engulfed 95% production), and this is where innovations are necessary both on a production and marketing level to take Indian teas to new heights and reward tea workers with better wages.
“Natural teas” is a new term being used in India by certain sections of tea doyens just as “speciality teas” is used in the West. Whether or not they mean exactly the same thing, they both lead to the same point–an attempt at a higher price realisation and thus higher wages for tea workers everywhere.
I applaud your efforts to find ways to increase sales and profits to pass along to workers. Some companies in the U.S. have established the concept of “profit sharing”. It motivates the employees to do an excellent job so that profits will increase and as a reward, they are given an actual percentage of the profits. If the company makes more money, everyone involved sees more money in their pocket.
I would also find other ways to incentivize the workers. Might an entrenprenuerial minded worker have a creative idea that will improve the process of tea making in some way. You’d be surprised what solutions workers might have. Truth is, most people never get asked for their ideas and typically keep it to themselves. The candy company MARS used to pay cash to their workers for any creative ideas that lead to improvements of any kind. This motivated workers to think outside the box and generate interest new ideas of doing things. Rather than just the management team of a handful of people generating ideas, now there are hundreds of people thinking of ways to improve sales/quality or anything throughout the developement through production phase of a product.
Non-traditional teas areas where tea plantation was never known the tea workers were the tea land owners and the life patterns were totally different and were governed by sun and not by watch..all of a sudden they found themselves as time bound people – quite dependent on the orders instead of the ingenuity..and this is the area which must be improved or rather utilised
Rajiv who owns the plantations in India? Is it similar to what we have in up country plantations in Sri Lanka where large agri businesses are lease holders of the plantation from the government. In our model these agri businesses are quoted on the stock market.
66% of the tea industry is owned by companies and rest is small growers in India and the balance is tilting more towards unorganised sector because of higher yields of the younger tea plantations of the small growers – bulk is being processed as CTC and sold thru tea auctions
Many plantation managers are too conservative. CTC tea doesn’t pay nowadays, competition is too intense. In order to make a profit and pay the tea pickers well, the plantations should innovate in tea processing and agricultural management. They should also find ways to cut down the middlemen and direct their marketing efforts towards the consumers. The average tea drinker would love to know how his tea is grown and what it’s like to work and live in a plantation. Unfortunately, most of that added-value is captured by the tea wholesaler who puts its brand name on the leaves.
The consumers want a cup that makes them travel, both on the palate and in the mind.
absolutely right but absolutely disregarded here in our case..we are producing more and more of sub-standard CTC..converting wood partly instead of green leaf into tea resulting in a swill which does not generate enough money to pay the worker his fill..historically it was the manager who was the shop-floor innovator but now he is stuck in the red-tape somewhere adding to the disaster looming on the industry