Nobody is questioning Fairtrade’s ambition to get the best deal for workers in developing countries. But it is struggling to change entrenched practices on tea estates and tackle abuses of its certification standards.

It is also incumbent on the large corporations that sell tea to take a more active part in ensuring that workers get the benefits to which they are entitled. If Fairtrade fails to achieve this, its credibility as a labelling organisation will be damaged and, more importantly, workers in developing countries will not see any improvement in their livelihoods.

As part of the certification process, plantations must meet specific criteria for the wages and living and working conditions of their pickers. Fairtrade also insists on a premium on its produce – paid by wholesale buyers, not directly by consumers – that is earmarked for the workers.

In the tea market, Fairtrade is taking on an industry that for decades has been accused of exploiting its workers. The task is complicated because most workers are hired by large tea estates that have hardly changed in a century. Estates are run as small kingdoms, with workers’ accommodation supplied by the company.

In the coffee industry, the relationship between the farmer or worker and the premium is much closer. Fairtrade certifies only small-scale farmers (or cooperatives) and the Fairtrade premium paid by coffee buyers goes directly to the farmer or the cooperative.

In tea estates, the premium is initially held by the estate owner. Under Fairtrade rules, the estate must set up a joint body of managers and workers who decide how the premium is spent. In many instances this does not happen.

The work is arduous, conditions can be poor and there are few alternative employment opportunities. The workers are effectively bonded to their estates. These are the conditions that Fairtrade hopes to change.

Inspections are vital to ensure that poor practices are tackled, but there remains a nagging doubt as to whether they are sufficiently robust when the labelling scheme, standards and inspections are all run by the same organisation.

Fairtrade claims that its inspections are independent and that it meets international auditing standards.

The Fairtrade Foundation admits that some workers have not heard of Fairtrade, but argues that it takes time to educate and involve the workers. But consumers have a right to know that there are problems in the tea industry and that the situation is not as rosy as some of the marketing suggests.

Parminder Bahra is The Times’s poverty and development correspondent

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