feature International
Ending the poisonous practices behind your daily brew
Most British consumer products spring from a supply chain that stretches thousands of miles. The chain spans continents and is touched by an untold number of hands.
What secrets do our consumer products hold? If we knew the full scale of the suffering that went into their production, would we still buy them?
For Unite and international union the IUF these aren’t mere philosophical questions. We all have a collective responsibility to one another – and that responsibility crosses borders.
So when British companies behind household names like PG Tips had failed to tackle sexual exploitation of women on Kenyan and Rwandan tea farms – instead of passing the buck – Unite and its global trade union partners decided enough was enough.
Last year, Unite and the IUF met with management at the British arm of Lipton Teas and Infusions in Manchester, where Unite is the recognised union. Unite was joined by global union representatives, IUF affiliates, from across the supply chain including the US, Turkey, Pakistan and India.
“We met with the employer and agreed a landmark sexual harassment framework that would apply throughout the supply chain,” Unite national officer for food, drink and agriculture Bev Clarkson said.
“Even though Lipton Teas doesn’t own the tea plantations in Kenya and Rwanda where the sexual abuse occurred, they still source all their tea from these farms. We made it perfectly clear to them that they still bore responsibility, because of due diligence and the wider supply chain. And to be fair to them, they accepted this responsibility.”
As Landworker highlighted last year, the horrific sexual abuse which Unite and the IUF are determined to stamp out first came to light after a 2023 BBC Panorama investigation.
Workers from a tea plantation in Kenya, then owned by Unilever and James Finlay & Co, told Panorama that they were being sexually abused by supervisors and recruiters. Because there is so little work in the area, they had no other option than to submit to their sexual demands, or face poverty.
Protection programme – Lipton's women workers are safer thanks to Unite 12 uniteLANDWORKER Summer 2025
One woman reported that she was suspended from work until she had
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