SENTRO, the trade union center affiliated to the IUF through its food, beverage and HRCT membership, is demanding income guarantees for all workers affected by the nationwide lockdown, including informal workers and the unemployed.

Many food processing companies in Brazil, including some of the largest groups, are failing to take the necessary measures to protect industry workers, putting public health and food security at risk. The IUF-affiliated national food processing federations in Brazil, CNTA and CONTAC (CUT), supported by the IUF Latin American regional secretariat, are calling for workplace and government action to maintain food security and protect worker health and safety.

The IUF-affiliated United Workers Union (UWU) is promoting an action program for the COVID-19 crisis and beyond which stresses the need for comprehensive social protection and public investment and ownership of key economic sectors. The status quo is not only untenable, says the union: 'Moments of rupture create space and impetus for change.'

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating unprecedented challenges for our affiliates around the world. All IUF sectors are impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak.

More than ever we need solidarity and a global response to minimize the risk and the impact on our members, their families and communities.

Workers from tea plantations who have migrated to other states in India to work in hotels, restaurants, plantations, construction and as daily wage workers are now returning to the plantations due to loss of work and income. The water and sanitation committees organized on plantations in Assam and West Bengal with the support of the IUF are fighting to secure the water they need to protect tea workers and their families against the coronavirus.

The rural workers' union SINTRAINAGRO has negotiated comprehensive COVID-19  support and health and safety protection measures for some 22,000 banana workers in an agreement signed on March 25 with the industry association Augura, representing national and transnational producers. The union insisted on the safety measures when the government decreed a partial country-wide lockdown which exempted many economic sectors, including agriculture.

Former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food Olivier De Schutter, has been appointed the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, effective May 1. De Schutter worked collaboratively with the IUF and spoke at meetings of our governing bodies. We congratulate him on this new appointment.

JBS, the world's largest meat company, has presented workers in Brazil with a stark choice: risk potentially fatal illness, or risk losing your job. On March 23, workers from the JBS units in Forquilhinha and Nova Veneza in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina were brutally repressed for protesting the company's decision to keep the production lines running without adequate protection against the spread of the coronavirus.

Unions in Italy, the European country hardest hit to date by the COVID-19 pandemic, have mobilized for strong measures to strengthen public health services and protect worker health and safety, employment and incomes since the onset of the crisis. On March 14, the three national union confederations, leading employer organizations and the government signed a protocol on measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus in workplaces.

Workers at the Perfetti van Melle (PvM) factory in Gazipur are keeping up their fight for collective bargaining rights with continuous daily protests at the factory. More than a year after their union was legally certified, local management of the Netherlands-based maker of Mentos and Chupa Chups insists on unilaterally setting basic terms and conditions like wages and leave.

With support from the IUF, Unite the Union, with 300 members at the Jacobs Douwe Egberts coffee plant in Banbury, Oxfordshire, is campaigning to challenge the company's plan to unilaterally dismiss the entire workforce and reemploy workers who submit to inferior pay and conditions.

On February 27 and 28, workers at the Danone yogurt and plant-based powder plant in Dubois, Pennsylvania voted overwhelmingly to become members of the IUF-affiliated BCTGM Local 19. The representation win follows a massive vote for representation by the IUF-affiliated UFCW at the Danone plant in Dallas, Texas last June following a determined organizing campaign.

On February 25, international trade unions took coordinated action to defend trade union rights in Ukraine from a proposed draft labour law that would exclude unions from the workplace, eliminate collective bargaining and basic social protections and promote mass casualization.