News

Between 15 and 17 August, the Head of UNI G&P Javier Carles and the Regional Director of UNI APRO G&P Rajendra Acharya visited India together. They did it to monitor the organising activities that UNI carries out with the support from Union to Union in the region of Pune.

During their visit they participated in the event organized to mark the 16th anniversary of Rashtriya Mazdoor Sangh (RMS) and conducted an evaluation and planning workshop with the RMS leaders and organizers who try to unionize packaging plants in Pune.

The difficulties facing the unionization of Amcor, Kimberly-Clark and Tetra Pak in that region are very large. Between 60% and 80% of the employees of these companies are provided by contractors and labor is formed mainly by migrant workers. The gap between wages of permanent employees of these companies and wages of contractors is huge. Therefore permanent workers are considered privileged to have such salaries and companies can easily convince them not to unionize.

However, the workers of a subcontractor Amcor Rigid Plastics plant in Alandi have been unionized a few months ago and, according to the organizers of the RMS, in the coming months many contract workers at Amcor and Kimberly-Clark will join the union.