Tea estate workers voice skepticism over ethical claims. CSRwire January 13, 2009 WEST BRIDGEWATER, MA - A recent article in The Times (London, UK), "Tea workers still waiting to reap Fairtrade benefits", reveals the contradictions the Fair Trade system has brought upon itself by embracing large scale plantations into a structure originally created to benefit small scale farmers in the developing world. In the Times article tea workers in Kenya claim to have been denied the promised benefits of Fair Trade and "suspect that the scheme is being used to make estates appear socially responsible as demand increases in the West for Fairtrade-labelled goods." "We are not surprised to hear of these shortcomings and abuses occurring on Fair Trade plantations," said Rink Dickinson, President and co-founder of Equal Exchange. "In fact," he added, "the findings presented in this article only serve to reaffirm our belief that plantations do not belong ...