Unilever’s Blue Band Margarine in Pakistan: A Union-Busting Spread

“Blue Band” margarine is one of the “Billion Dollar Brands” identified by global food and personal products corporation Unilever as the key to its future growth and profits. Yet, in Pakistan the management of the factory which produces this “Billion Dollar Brand” of margarine is engaged in a direct assault on the right of workers to be in a trade union.

In Pakistan, Blue Band is manufactured in an outsourced factory, previously owned directly by Unilever and now owned by former Unilever Pakistan managers.

The employment system at the factory is a reflection of Unilever’s job-destroying policies, which have decimated permanent employment across the company’s worldwide operations. The majority of workers at the Dalda factory have temporary and casual employment status and are recruited through labour hire companies.

In April and May, workers at the Dalda factory began to organise and, on 13 May, 430 workers registered the Dalda Food Employees Union with the relevant local authorities. At the same time the union successfully applied for a “stay order”, to protect workers from dismissal, as in Pakistan it is extremely common that workers are immediately fired upon seeking to register a trade union. Despite this, management of Dalda factory violated the order and fired 266 workers on 24 May.

In response to the dismissals, the union organised a camp (pictured above) in front of the factory, where workers meet daily to protest, hold discussions and undertake solidarity actions with fraternal unions.

On 2 June the Labour Department issued formal recognition of the Dalda Food Employees Union and with help from the IUF-affiliated National Federation of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Workers sought collective bargaining status. The management sought to to have the union’s registration stopped through an injunction in the Sindh High Court and opposed collective bargaining with the union on the grounds that the workers were not actually employees of the Dalda factory, rather they were employees of a labour hire company.

In addition to these legal tactics opposing trade union rights, the management have now begun a dirty tricks campaign designed to entrap the union with false accusations of violence. On 30 July, a contractor at the factory, exited the Dalda factory and approached the union camp; union members saw him coming and asked him to leave, whereupon he returned to the factory. Sympathetic workers inside the factory alerted those gathered outside at the camp that the management was attempting to fabricate a case of violence. One hour later the contractor was sent to hospital and management submitted a complaint to police. But there is no medical record and workers have heard reports the management are attempting to produce a false medical certificate.

In response to these actions on 30 July the union submitted a complaint to the Sindh Minister of the Interior calling for an investigation. On 4 August the Sindh High Court refused to accept the Dalda factory management petition seeking to deny the recognition of the union.

In general, this dispute demonstrates the on-going anti-union repression workers in Pakistan face daily. But more specifically, this case highlights the growing reality of employment conditions for workers who make Unilever’s “billion dollar brands”: precarious employment with no job security whatsoever, union-busting, harassment, fabrication of evidence and vexatious litigation. “Blue Band” margarine may be a “billion dollar brand” for Unilever, but for the rest of the world, it may soon become another of Unilever’s brands synonymous with indecent jobs and the brutal violation of trade union rights.

You can support the union’s struggle for union rights for all workers by sending a message of solidarity to the workers through the through the IUF Pakistan office and the National Federation of Food, Beverage and Tobacco Workers.