The PepsiCo Workers’ Union, which represents 650 workers at PepsiCo Pakistan, was officially recognised and granted collective bargaining status in July 2016, but the company has consistently refused to acknowledge the union or its demands. Instead PepsiCo has harassed and threatened union officers, targeting them for disciplinary procedures on false charges. The union president has been transferred out of the plant to prevent contact with members. The company has also registered a fake national union claiming to represent workers at two different sites in order to undercut the Lahore workers’ demand for a negotiated collective agreement. Union members are being denied overtime and pressured to leave the union.
Workers initially formed a union in response to the massive abuse of precarious employment through labour contractors, which denies permanent employment to workers who have worked for years at the plant. Of the more than 1,500 workers employed at the factory in the year to March 2016, only 134 had permanent employment status.
At the beginning of February 2017 workers were still protesting against ongoing harassment of union members.