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James Finlay Kenyan Tea Pickers Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Former Kenyan tea leaf pickers filed a lawsuit against James Finlay.
- Why: Workers allege James Finlay was negligent by knowingly subjecting them to hazardous work conditions which have caused permanent physical injury.
- Where: The lawsuit has been filed in the Scottish Court of Session.
James Finlay subjected Kenyan tea leaf pickers to hazardous working conditions that left them with chronic injuries, a newly filed lawsuit alleges.
A group of 1,300 former James Finlay workers claim the company underpaid them and forced them to work long hours with heavy baskets of tea leaves strapped to their backs, reports the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
Workers allege James Finlay was negligent in requiring tea pickers to work in clearly hazardous conditions that has caused some to suffer permanent spine damage.
The lawsuit expands on a complaint originally filed by seven workers who were examined by an orthopaedics professor who found they all had sustained spinal injuries.
Plaintiff Rebecca Nyakondo claims James Finlay paid her as little as £1.50 per day for 12-hour shifts picking tea with up to 20kg of leaves strapped to her back, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reports.
Nyakondo says she now suffers from chronic back pain caused by picking tea which is still stocked by companies such as Starbucks, Tesco, the Co-Op, Sainsbury’s, and Bettys and Taylors Group.
Nyakondo is among a Class of Kenyan nationals who were tasked by the British-owned James Finlay to pick tea on the company’s plantations located in the Kenyan highlands.
Nyakondo says she lived and worked on the plantation and that her pay was determined by how many tea leaves she was able to pick each day.
James Finlay was able to stall the lawsuit four years ago in a lower Scottish court by getting a Kenyan court to block a court-ordered inspection of its facilities, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre reports.
The case in Kenya is currently headed for the country’s highest court, after it was ruled that enforcing a foreign court’s order would be unconstitutional.
Do you suffer from chronic injury you believe is related to working as a tea leaf picker for James Finlay? Let us know in the comments!
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