Tea company gets international partnership for local workerforce

NORTHERN PROVINCE RULINDO—Workers of a private tea company Sorwathé, have created a partnership with Fair Trade Labeling organisation (FLO), an international labour organisation based in Germany. The arrangement makes Sorwathe workers members of the organisation after their company joined FLO projects at the end of 2005. Fair trade is an organised international social movement and market-oriented organisation, meant to alleviate global poverty and promote sustainability. This was disclosed recently by the tea company director general Cally Alles. He said Sorwathe paid for inspection fees of their company to ascertain whether they met the stipulated conditions for membership, like protection of workers from job hazards. After duly satisfying the prerequisites, Alles said, they were registered in May 2006. Alles said only workers of their tea companies are eligible to join the body with about 2,200 members. It is composed of sub-groups of 12 workers at factory and plantation levels, and two workers from the management level. “Since then, our workers have earned Frw51million from FLO as an extra premium received from the sales of our tea to their treasury. But the premium comes from sales made to only fair-trade certified buyers,” Alles said. He noted that the move has transformed their workers’ economic status as investments by their association have been introduced. “They have profit generating projects supplementing their monthly income,” he added. Some of the projects revealed include: goats, poultry, sheep, bicycles for transport and buying of cereals for sale at a profit. Alles however, noted that these were minor investments compared to earnings from FLO. He disclosed that they have bigger development projects like a commercial building that was bought and is under refurbishment to act as a library, internet café, and vocational training centre in Rulindo district. “They have also built a kindergarten school with a play ground and provision of piped water project for the community, which is a sign of their social responsibly towards community development. Currently, they have enrolled for English lessons to improve communication,” Alles continued. He revealed that workers who are operating in cooperatives are also ready to join FLO after seeing the returns the factory workers have earned. And Alles was optimistic that within the next four years, their workers would make sound impacts on the community thus ‘making the Millennium Development Goals a reality.’ Ends