The First International Tea Day Conference:

New Delhi, India

The Center for Education and Communication in India, together with the Institute for Social Development, Sri Lanka, organized the 1^st International Tea Day Conference, which was in Faridabad, India. The conference spanned the 13^th and the 14^th of December, 2005, and many Trade Union Leaders, Trade Union representatives, and intellectuals participated from Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Malawi, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam.

The Conference mainly aimed at discussing the problems and issues faced by the Tea Plantation Workers and Tea Small Growers. It was also seen necessary that a Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tea Workers and Small Growers be enforced, to strengthen advocacy and campaigns, both locally and internationally.  The following are areas addressed in the Declaration drawn up at the conference;

1. Affirmation of the principle of living wages; wages should not be linked to the price of tea

2. Joint ownership of homestead land for tea workers

3. establishment of tripartite regulatory mechanisms for the closure of gardens

4. Creation of a separate authority for small growers for fixation of tea prices

5. need for a separate pricing and monitoring system for small tea growers to ensure them a fair price

6. Attention to occupational safety and health issues

7. End to the exploitation of women workers who constitute the majority of the workers; setting up a gender-health desk to address gender issues

8. Setting up of special agencies and monitoring of social security of tea workers

9. Respect for trade union rights, which are universal rights

10. Avoid uneven competition among tea-growing nations

11. Carry forward an effective campaign and create an appropriate platform to realize the contents of the declaration

Achieving the aimed need of a comprehensive declaration of rights to protect the tea plantation Worker and the small grower, can be surely considered as the crowning success of the 1^st International Tea Day Conference