IUF affiliates in Pakistan representing workers in sugar mills, transnational food and beverage companies  and agricultural farms and plantations launched a joint campaign for "sustainable sugar" and a rights-based approach to mitigating climate change.

The first union of women agricultural workers, Sindh Haryani Union, was launched in Pakistan with over 500 members from seven rural districts in Sindh province.Union members are engaged in planting and harvesting crops on farms that grow wheat, barley, cotton, rice, vegetables, and sugar cane. At the founding conference union members spoke about the impact of climate change that has made insecure seasonal work even more uncertain, with unstable incomes leading to growing debt and poverty.

Unions have obtained access to the full accident records of the New Zealand meat processor Talleys/AFFCO group of companies, and the records show a further increase over the previous year's horrific number of workers maimed and injured at the workplace.

Five union leaders unfairly terminated for union activities at the Bagan Hotel River View more than a year ago have been fully reinstated and management has entered into good faith negotiations with the union. The union is a member of the independent Hotel Chitthu Township Level Labour Organization Bagan-Nyaung Oo (HLOB) which is affiliated to the IUF. Last year the IUF launched a global campaign in support of the union and filed a complaint with the ILO concerning violations of the right to freedom of association. 

Forced labour in Uzbekistan's cotton harvest remains widespread and human rights monitors face massive state repression, according to a new report from the Uzbek German Forum.
The cover-up - whitewashing Uzbekistan's white gold documents the Uzbek government's use of "arbitrary detention, threats, degrading ill-treatment… to silence monitors and undermine their ability to conduct research and provide information to the ILO and other international institutions".

After years of campaigning the IUF-affiliated Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) won a major victory for informal sector workers in the state of Gujarat in the form of government issued identity cards. The identity cards are the first held by informal sector workers, identifying them as workers and granting access to free health insurance, accident insurance for women and children, hospitalization coverage and free access to rural health services covering all medical benefits for workers and their families.

Tens of thousands of Colombians responded to the call for a national strike on March 17 by the country's national trade union confederations, supported by a wide coalition of social movement and civil society organizations. Workers and citizens across the country stopped work and took to the streets to demand an end to neo-liberal government policies which have generated insecurity, unemployment and widespread hunger.

The IUF and the French-based food products transnational Danone have signed a ground-breaking Agreement on Sustainable Employment and Access to Rights built around a joint commitment to promote "permanent, direct employment as an essential foundation for a sustainable business anchored in respect for human rights."

Workers across the tuna industry are escalating the campaign to make sustainable jobs and respect for human rights an integral part of a sustainable fisheries industry. At the March 11 launch of Tuna Workers Solidarity in General Santos, the tuna capital of the Philippines, workers and their families condemned human rights violations, forced labour and trafficking, insecure employment in tuna factories and tuna companies' refusal to take responsibility for fishing vessel workers lost at sea or abandoned in other countries.

A long campaign by IUF affiliate Unite supported by all New Zealand unions has resulted in a unanimous vote in parliament to ban zero hours contracts. All employment agreements will now be required to stipulate agreed and guaranteed hours; these hours must be recorded with reference to days of work and start and finish times.

Save our jobs - IUF affiliates in Guyana battle to save Wales estate where 1700 sugar workers' jobs are at stake while the IUF calls on the Minister of Agriculture to come to the negotiating table.