The IUF and Amnesty International have teamed up for action on International Women’s Day 2011 to highlight the situation of Zimbabwe farmworkers and the exiled leader of their union, Gertrude Hambira. Members and officers of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) have suffered continual intimidation, harassment and violence by Zimbabwe police, ruling party thugs and ‘war veterans’ because of their work defending the rights of farmworkers.

Workers from Moldova's bankrupt Glodeni-Zahar sugar company are now blocking rail and truck transport in a desperate effort to defend their meager patrimony. They have not been paid their wages since June 2009 and will receive no benefits after years of service if they do not succeed.

On 18 December 2010 Nestlé Russia announced the sale of its Altai confectionary plant, located in Barnaul in Central Russia. The workforce – who are part of the sale – were informed the previous day.

Workers on the Nowera Nuddy tea estate in northern West Bengal, India and their Progressive Tea Workers Union (PTWU) are as determined as ever to win justice. A contingent of workers, all PTWU members, travelled the 650 kilometers from their plantation to Kolkata on February 4 to press their demands in a rally outside the Indian headquarters of Tata Global Beverages (TGB).

The mass revolt in Tunisia which drove Ben Ali from power has also changed the balance of power within companies. Trade unions played a crucial coordination and organizing role in the social upheaval.  At Coca-Cola’s Tunisian bottler SFBT, unions have seized the opportunity to negotiate an end to agency work and roll back the abusive use of precarious employment contracts.

The IUF spoke on February 1 with Houcine Krimi, responsible for transnational companies at our affiliate FGAT-UGTT.

How did Coca-Cola workers respond to the mass protests in the country?

The US AFL-CIO and the global union federation ICEM have joined the IUF in lodging a formal complaint against French-based sugar- and starchmaker Roquette Frères for violating the Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The Steering Committee meeting began on 7 September with a strong message from co-chair Klaus Hoffmann concerning the ongoing conflict in Indonesia. He insisted that it remain a focus for the company and urged that it be resolved soon.  A major topic of discussion at the meeting was remuneration.

On 7 October over 200 workers and their families – wearing caps from their Swiss sister union UNIA - rallied outside the Nescafe factory in Panjang, Indonesia, to denounce the corporate social irresponsibility of the world’s largest food company.

Just two weeks after the victory in Coca-Cola Multan, workers at Coca-Cola Pakistan's Faisalabad plant had cause to celebrate yet again today, as their union was officially registered.

Following a month-long campaign, the Milk Food Factory Workers Union at the GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Horlicks factory in Nabha in Punjab state in northwest India, has won permanent employment for 452 casual workers employed on a 'temporary’ basis for more than a decade.

We never bought it, so we can't change the recommendation to sell - but we have taken a closer look at the rating put on Nestlé's Creating Shared Value Report 2009 in order to investigate the reporting criteria - and whether they've been met.

Since April 21 hundreds of workers at the Horlicks factory in Nabha in Punjab state in northwest India, have held continuous protest actions against the company’s refusal to grant permanent employment to casual workers employed on a 'temporary’ basis for more than a decade.