This incident would not have happened if the district collector had received the leaders of the demonstrators into his office and received their memorandum to the government. The conditions of Manjolai workers Following the July police attack, the General Secretary of the Human Rights Commission, Karthekeyan visited the Manjolai estates and declared that he had found no bonded labour conditions nor bonded labourers. In the strict sense, the Manjolai workers are not bonded labourers but they had little choice but to accept the low pay and atrocious working and living conditions on the estates. Men and women workers work in the fields for nine hours a day. The tea bushes are on the steep hillsides at an altitude of between 4,500 and 4,800 feet, subject at different times of the year to heavy rains and sometimes snow.
Workers pick under all conditions.
There are no toilets or shelters. Workers leave their homes in the early morning, walking up to seven kilometres to reach the roll muster point by 7.30am. Throughout the day, overseers supervise the workers. During working hours, workers are not permitted to walk off to urinate. The overseers even demand workers show them the spot where they have urinated in order to check that the workers have not simply been resting.