Exploitation of Tea Plantations

My dear friends who show concern for Tea!
I have spent 40 years of my life as a child, adolescent and then working in Managerial capacities on the Tea Plantations. Tea is not just a beverage. it is a way of life.
Many Garden Owners have indeed used the estates as milking cows, have not Re-invested sufficiently to keep the plantations and its workers in good health and except for some genuine Planters / companies, most have literally raped the properties. Please excuse my language.
There are also estates with 10 different Labor unions. Estates where there is one Worker in a family living in a Company provided accommodation and having 10 Non Working "dependants" .The worker is usually a woman, and the rest simply eat up into the fragile infrastructure of the estates like parasites. Can you imagine 10 persons using a toilet which has been designed for a family of four? When the septic tank overflows, the Manager is supposed to get it cleaned, and if he delays, he may be hacked to death.
Same goes for stopping the stealing electricity - you stop them and you may be burnt to death. This has happened in Sapoi Tea Estate of Assam where two planters were burnt alive and reduced to footballs.
Then there are Managers who get Rehabilitation Grass cut for their cows by the estate workers and sell the milk for personal gain, and at the same time impound workers' cows if they graze in the plantation. The workers and nearby villagers then take onto grazing their cattle in hundreds in the middle of the night.
Cattle trespass leads to infestation of Red Spider and other mites which leads to the use of expensive Acaricides to be sprayed, making the harvest toxic and further taxing the meager resources.
Traders are no less .. Spurious items of food, clothing and other necessities are sold to the poor workers at exorbitant prices.
Friends, ask a true planter ... he would say chasing cows is his main job. And yes, you will always find at least one Laborer, One Planter, One Trader .... One Tea-Man once in a while, and thank God for them that the Industry still LIVES! I say my hats off to this rare class of people who continue to perform their duties in spite of so many hurdles. It is only due to them that the industry still lives on.Tea Cheers!