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Sacked Agency Workers Continue Struggle at Unilever Pakistan Spinoff Dalda Foods

Posted to the IUF website 13-Oct-2008

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Recognize the Dalda Food Employees Union/Stop Anti-Worker Practices - IUF Pakistan

Former agency workers at Unilever's Pakistan spinoff Dalda Foods who were sacked earlier this year for attempting to form a union are stepping up their struggle. With support from the IUF-affiliated National Federation of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Workers, the workers have relaunched their camp in front of the Karachi factory after a respite during the month of Ramadan, keeping watch round-the-clock for the possible removal of machinery. The workers are receiving daily support for their vigil from the Federation and from other trade union organizations alert to the central importance of the struggle against mass casualization and outsourcing.

In addition to the hundreds of workers who were sacked immediately when the Dalda Workers founded and registered the Dalda Food Employees Union, 30 workers who joined their picket line during meal breaks have also been sacked, and have filed complaints for unfair dismissal.

Since 2004, when Unilever Pakistan sold its Dalda brand plant manufacturing edible oils and fats in Karachi to a group of former company managers incorporated as Dalda Foods (Pvt.) Limited, Dalda has made both the former Unilever Dalda line of edible oils and Unilever's trademark Blue Band margarine. The outsourced Unilever/Blue Band product is the cornerstone of Unilever's tie-up with the United Nations' World Food Program, which promotes Blue Band through its "Together for Child Vitality" program, described in UN press releases as a "joint venture" with Unilever. Despite claims that Unilever employees have signed up to participate for the program, Unilever actually employs only a few hundred workers on direct employment contracts in its sizeable operations in Pakistan. At Dalda Foods, producing branded Unilever Blue Band under license, there are no permanent workers.