Paper short abstract:

With six factories and around 5000 workers,Burundi tea industry is the second national economy after coffee. This paper want to understand the issues of tea labor and the worker's possibilities to negotiate or struggle for their socio-economic conditions, in poverty and authoritarian context.

Paper long abstract:

In Burundi, as the second national economy,tea has been introduced in the state's large plantations (19%) and in the peasant's smallholding.

In tea region,there is a large social demand for development and labor migration. In addition to land, labor is the main issue to the tea industry development. It is a big labor's mobilization (around 5000 workers in six factories) according to the migration movement and the all activities: plantations, forestation, roads, transport, processing factories,...

So,this paper is interested by the socio-economic, political and cultural aspects in Burundi tea working class (income, migration, legislation, gender, age, education, working and life conditions, organization, negotiation, perceptions, appropriations, social struggles,...), in public and private. If the tea industry is one of the main factors in the rural employment and wage-earning, what are the different issues or ambiguities and the possibilities of the workers to negotiate or struggle for the improvement of their living and working conditions, in the authoritarian political culture? Why the young persons (generally educated) prefer the small urban jobs (or stay at home without job), but not to work in the tea plantations? In a society where the rural activities are generally done by women, why there is more men than women in the tea labor? According to the poverty, the general unemployment and the problem of workers in the tea industry, it means that the socio-economic and cultural context and perceptions are not favorable to the voluntary and popular commitment of rural and life labor.