On 23-24 June 2009, representatives from 17 diary workers unions in the states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharastra, West Bengal and Goa met in New Delhi, India to announce the emergence of a new voice for dairy workers, the Dairy Employees Federation of India (DEFOI). During the meeting member unions agreed to a joint declaration outlining a set of commitments and goals which dairy workers unions will uphold and struggle for as part of the new federation (the declaration appears below in full). Angus McConnell, Assistant Secretary of the IUF-affiliated New Zealand Dairy Workers Union and Ma Wei Pin, IUF Asia/Pacific Regional Secretary, attended the meeting and shared the experiences of dairy workers and industry restructuring in other countries of the region. DEFOI’s emergence was assisted through the organising efforts of the IUF India Outreach Office.
We, the representatives of the undersigned Dairy Industry Unions from across the county have voluntarily formed a union federation (Dairy Employees Federation of India, DEFOI) which was registered on June 3, 2009.
We met in Delhi on 23-24 June 2009 and issue the following Declaration, known as the “Dairy Workers Delhi Declaration”.
- We note that the dairy industry is currently undergoing profound changes that are hurting the lives of dairy workers;
a. India has committed itself to integrating its dairy sector with the world market;
b. The private sector (domestic and foreign) is increasing its role in the dairy sector aiming to extract massive profits; dairy co-operatives (co-ops) are transforming their role and activities to operate more like private sector companies and weaker co-ops are under intense pressure. Concurrently, legislations governing co-ops are changing to enable the transformation of co-ops into companies;
c. Milk processing plants and units producing dairy products are undergoing big changes invariably leading to reduction in regular jobs and expansion in contract labour;
d. These changes negatively affect job security, working conditions and labour rights for all dairy workers;
- We declare that the aims of the Federation are to unify, lead, support and represent dairy workers’ interests as a unified industry labour body;
- We take this step as a necessary response to the ever changing dairy work environment where real wages are falling, job security is disappearing and our bargaining power or capacity to defend members’ interest is severely threatened;
- We stand against the employment practice of labour contractualisation (which is immiserating labour) and for job security with fair pay and with safe conditions; and, we will campaign to collectively improve our conditions and re-gain job security and justice for workers in the dairy industry;
- DEFOI is open to all dairy workers’ unions in an inclusive, non-sectarian way. It is committed to remain politically independent in order to effectively unite all dairy workers irrespective of their voting or political party preference, for the sake of improving workers’ lives and the lives of those who are dependent on them.
- We pledge to share information internally within DEFOI, to assist each other, to identify common problems, to agree on and pursue common goals, to act in solidarity with each other, to support the DEFOI Union Centre in concrete ways and materially.
- We pledge to build the DEFOI Union Centre together and will advise on its address in due course.
- We pledge to build international links and develop global dairy sector labour solidarity through affiliation with the food workers global union federation (IUF) in order to tackle the problems arising from integration of India’s dairy industry with the global dairy market.
We declare our unity and commitment as one dairy union voice and we ask all dairy workers to endorse this Delhi Declaration through their unions in order to protect the common interest of dairy workers in this critical period as the dairy industry is undergoing profound changes and restructuring.