ROLE OF COLONIAL PRESENCE IN INDIAN TEA PLANTATION INDUSTRY IN ASSAM AND DARJEELING
The William Pitts India Act of 1784 gave the crown the power of guiding the politics of India with as little means of corrupt influence as possible, which in effect established a concrete link between the doings of the East India Company and the approval of the Royal Government, Because East India Company’s products were seen as “necessary” returns for public funds and trust put into the joint stock, the parliament was responsible for raising the finances to pay for the trade, the company’s power to authorize letters and make laws awarded the company sovereign authority of many Indian provinces. The new regime of East India Company served as a precedent for a later tea plantation as the Assam Company and business who utilized manipulation and profiteering methods, the accumulation of personal wealthy was a prime intention, first by 1834, the Waste Land Rules was enacted to allow government granted lands to be free of revenue for 20 years. The legislation marginalized Indian labourers and peasants, the cycle of debt and dependence chained labourers to a life of exploitation.
The essential feature of plantation legislation especially in the early stages of its development was regulated of contract between planters and labourers by which the latter were bound under penalties; to work for the former for a certain period of time, the purpose of the legislations was to guarantee planters the services of their recruits as well as a secure hold over the labourers.
The most grippling examples of exploitation was within the realm of labor recruitment, as the underlying aim sought to keep labor costs as low as possible to increase profits and pers...
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...s were a vital essentiality for women laborers but with the abolition of this act some of these concessions were withdrawn.
Rana Pratap Behal in his work “Wage structure and labor in Assam Valley Tea Plantation” expresses the fact that variation between the wages of men and women were totally arbitrary and discriminatory, women and children were paid less, the hours of work was the same put in by both men and women, moreover women performed most types of work done by men such as hoeing and even pruning, in fact women laborers even specialized in plucking, besides there were no complaints either in official histories or in the Indian Trade Association reports of women performing less work as compared to men, therefore it seems that the variation between male and female wages was created purely on the basis of conventional values of sexual discrimination.
In the first few months of 1773 the British East India Company found it was sitting on large stocks of tea that it could not sell in England. It was on the verge of bankruptcy, and many members of Parliament owned stock in this company. (USA, 1) The Tea Act in 1773 was an effort to save it. The Tea Act gave the company the right to export its merchandise without paying taxes. Thus, the company could undersell American merchants and monopolize the colonial tea trade. By October, the Sons of Liberty in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston threatened tea imports and pledged a tea boycott.
The United States’s industrialization lead to a great boom in both economic and population growth, allowing businesses to flourish. With more money and workers at their disposal, employers often would often mistreat workers, suddenly cutting their wages or firing them. With only profit in mind, industries eventually became monopolized and the conditions of workers only worsened. Defenseless and barely able to survive, laborers soon found power in uniting with each other, leading to the establishment of American labor unions during the Gilded Age. They provided workers with necessary protection from their employers’ capricious decisions, and while their presence elicited fear in business owners, unions eventually bettered the standard of living for the American proletarian through compromise.
... of Labor Unions in Labor Markets. In R. C. Free (Ed.), 21st Century Reference Series. 21st Century Economics (Vol. 1, pp. 163-172). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.library3.webster.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX1700400026&v=2.1&u=edenweb_main&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w
Fino, R. (2013, 08 12). The Cosa Nostra and labour racketeering. Retrieved 04 19, 2014, from Laborers: www.laborers.org/fino_thesis.html
Some of the earliest records of slavery date back to 1760 BC; Within such societies, slavery worked in a system of social stratification (Slavery in the United States, 2011), meaning inequality among different groups of people in a population (Sajjadi, 2008). After the establishment of Jamestown in 1607 as the first permanent English Chesapeake colony in the New World that was agriculturally-based; Tobacco became the colonies chief crop, requiring time consuming and intensive labor (Slavery in colonial America, 2011). Due to the headlight system established in Maryland in 1640, tobacco farmers looked for laborers primarily in England, as each farmer could obtain workers as well as land from importing English laborers. The farmers could then use such profits to purchase the passage of more laborers, thus gaining more land. Indentured servants, mostly male laborers and a few women immigrated to Colonial America and contracted to work from four to seven years in exchange for their passage (Norton, 41). Once services ended after the allotted amount of time, th...
Tobacco plantation formed an essential component of Pre-Civil War African-American slavery. During the early colonial period in the United States, plantation constituted as the highest percentage of economic activity. The economic growth of American colonies relied on the export of cash crops such as rice, indigo etc. However, out of all cash crops, tobacco became the most popular one due to its use for pipes, cigars, and snuff. Due to this growing demand for tobacco in Europe, Early American settlers discontinued all other economic activities and started tobacco cultivation. As a result, tobacco became the principal and dominant cash crop of Southern colonies such as Virginia, Chesapeake, and Maryland. Now growing tobacco was very labor- intensive, as it required a large amount of work force. For the plantation and processing of tobacco, thousands of indentured servants and slaves worked at farms. An example of American tobacco plantation is shown in document seven, “Illustration of Slaves Cultivating Tobacco, 1738.” As tobacco plantation grew in importance in the southern economy, the demand for more workers grew as well. This increase in labor demand, and the desire of money making urged early American settlers to seek free labor. In short, tobacco plantation became the key step to promote the need of free permanent labor, and to raise the Question of slavery.
Laborers were required to work long hours each day. The employers argued that they required them to work so much to keep them from going out and getting drunk. Laborers would meet the demands of these employers as they felt it was the only way to make an income
The Industrial Revolution that took place after the Civil War made for a more economically sound country. American workers, however, were becoming more and more dependent upon their wages; a fear of unemployment also stemmed from this. Workers didn’t share in the benefits that their employers reaped. In a chart representing the hours and wages of industrial workers, from 1875 to 1891, it shows that even though their wages were subtly increasing, their 10-hour work day remained the same (Doc. A). Factories were headed by large corporations; this, in turn, meant that new machines lessened the amount of workers in certain fields. As a result of these unsuitable conditions, labor unions were formed. The challenges that these unions faced weren’t easy. If the workers involved in organized labor got too far out of line, these corporations could get federal authorities involved. Moreover, these companies could enforce “ironclad oaths” upon their employees. In a Western Union Telegraph Company employee contract, in 1883, it states that the employee will not be affiliated with any societies or organizations (Doc. E). Despite such setbacks, by 1872 there were over 32 national unions.
Though female workers were more skilled in spinning and weaving, they received far less payment than their male counterpart, which was, in some case, even less than that of their child. A complaint from a female worker wrote that "My husband earns SC. a week; I earn 2s., the eldest child 4s. 6d., second child 3s. 6d., the third child 2s. 6d." (Document F). This illustrated that an adult female mother was paid less than her smallest child (eleven years old) and nearly one sixth of the wage of her husband. The wage of the female mother accounts for less than one twelfth of the total family income. Mill wages report in Hyed, English depicted that the average daily wage of the 114 female loom operators was 26 pence and 40 pence for male workers (Document G). Female workers got only nearly 65 percent of that of their male counterparts. The average daily wage of Japanese female and male cotton mill worker was at a ratio of 9/17, 9/16 for seasonal agricultural wageworker and 13/27 for silk factory worker in the year 1892 (Document H). The female workers received almost half of that of male workers. Their payment was not enough for a living when compared with the price level at that time. As described in "Rice in Nagano" that "I quart of rice cost I sen, I quart made about 15 servings", which uncovered that female not only received far less Thant male workers but also got such a low wage that was not even enough for making a living (Document
Modern America has overcome vast amounts of worker mistreatment, from child labor to unsafe work environments. Each time the corruption thrived for a while before anyone found a need to put a stop to it. Slowly but surely, the flaws in the system crept out of the shadows, disturbing every individual who had been previously ignorant. Mac McClelland reveals that warehouse workers still suffer from such unjust treatment in her article, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave.” After working in a real warehouse, she exposed the cruelty of her employers by providing an emotional description of her experience.
Ethics and the Unions - Part 1. Industrial Workers of the World. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.iww.org/en/history/library/Dolgoff/newbeginning/1
Under the employment of the powerful capitalists, the workers had long hours and low wages (Schoenthaler, 2018b). Additionally, they worked in poor working conditions and performed mind-numbing work on assembly lines (Schoenthaler, 2018b). These conditions provoked the first of many worker strikes. For instance, one of the first was the Homestead strike against the Carnegie Steel Company (History.com Staff, 2009). When Andrew Carnegie placed Henry Frick, an unethical man, in charge, the workers endured long hours, low wages, and strenuous work (Schoenthaler, 2018b). As a result, the workers went on strike and demanded shorter hours and higher wages (Schoenthaler, 2018b). In response, Henry Frick hired the Pinkerton guards to forcibly remove the workers from the factory (History.com Staff, 2009). Consequently, the battle between the guards and workers resulted in death and injuries on both sides (History.com Staff, 2009). Eventually, the Carnegie Steel Company managed to run the factory again with strikebreakers (History.com Staff, 2009). As a result of these conditions, the capitalists increased the social inequality gap between those of great wealth and of extreme poverty (Schoenthaler,
One thing The Affluent Society points out, this also gave rights to women. Even though the Act was passed, it took time to put the...
Due to various countries initiatives to shrink the wage inequality between men and women wages in the work force, the gap has narrowed, respectively, which may have helped form such opinion. However, stating that the gender pay gap does not exist in today’s society, anywhere, is completely unlikely. Seeing that the gap has loosened its grasp in the working world, in other countries, the gap between pay has widened or remained stagnant. One cannot help but wonder why the gap remains consistent, even with such substantial progress made in countries where the gap has decreased. Reasons as to why gender wage gap exist so heavily, slightly differs from country to country, but the overall effect from the wage disparity is wholly evident.
With major control over India, the British used a combination of firepower & guile to consolidate their power over the country by expanding from their base areas along the coast into the interior (Duiker 31). Some territories were also taken over the privately run East India Company, which at the time was given authority to administer Asian territories under British occupation, while others were ruled by local maharajas (Duiker 31). British governance brought order and stability to a society that had recently been wrecked by the wars from the different empires (Duiker 31).