How do you take your tea?
A CDMS political workshop with Menaha Kandasamy (Sri Lanka)
Presented by Community Defence Marshalling System and Workers International Discussion
3–5pm, Saturday 19 July 2025
Balam Balam Place
Balam Balam Place
15 Phoenix St, Brunswick 3056 VIC – map
This event is free. All community welcome.
Please register below to help us estimate numbers!
This event is free. All community welcome.
Please register below to help us estimate numbers!
What’s the issue?
- Sri Lanka’s tea industry is Australia’s second biggest supplier of tea – and employs about 10% of the country’s workforce
- Plantation workers are paid a pittance, and forced to work extremely hard in unsafe, unsanitary conditions
- Poverty and starvation are rife; children often work instead of going to school, in order to alleviate their families’ hunger
- Over the past few years, workers have been pushed from permanent full-time work to unregulated, casualised employment – losing compensation, leave entitlements and health and safety protections – while being forced to fertilise and maintain plantation land too
Who’s involved?
- The Sri Lankan government leases land to plantation companies and sets agricultural and labour policies
- Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) manage and operate tea plantations and wholesale products
- Plantation workers (mostly descended from indentured labourers brought to Sri Lanka during British Occupation) receive as little as $8.70 a day, or $0.30 per kilo of tea – with no access to drinking water or toilets, let alone sick or maternity leave
- Tea companies market their tea as ethically produced, and continually push wholesale prices down
- Supermarkets purchase and discount tea at low prices that are increasingly decoupled from the costs of production
- The Ceylon Workers’ Red Flag Union represents plantation workers – and is campaigning for the return of their conditions, benefits and job security
- You! Whether you’re a concerned worker, a trade union member or just somebody who enjoys a cup of tea, we need you to help us raise awareness, increase pressure and share your voice or your expertise
We need all of these to make change happen.
Why should I care?
- Plantation workers are our comrades, and we owe them our solidarity. Improvements to our quality of life come at the expense of their poor working and living conditions
- The predicament of plantation workers is increasingly both a labour rights and human rights issue
- Australians pay on average $0.08 per tea bag. We have the power to stand with plantation workers and curb the exploitation that is keeping people from living full, free lives
What can I do?
- Join us from 3–5pm on Saturday 19 July 2025 at Balam Balam Place to learn about the struggle from Menaha Kandaswamy – a Ceylon Workers’ Red Flag Union activist visiting from Sri Lanka
- Submit a short video to support the campaign
- Next time you’re sharing a cup of tea – share what you know!
Did you attend? We’d love to know what you thought. Your feedback is crucial in helping us learn and improve.
Our activities take place on Aboriginal land. We acknowledge that Indigenous sovereignty was never ceded, and stand firmly in solidarity with First Nations people against dispossession and genocide.
We participate in actions according to the cultural protocols of local Aboriginal people – most often, Kulin Nations people – to the best of our knowledge and abilities.