Eastern Kazakhstan has been a regional center of poultry production since Soviet times, and the Cheremshanskaya "Poultry Plant Plus" is one of the largest. Formerly emplying 650 people, fifteen years after its privatization the plant today provides jobs for only 360. The average wage is some USD 1-200 monthly - but today wages are paid only rarely, and rarely in full. Wage arrears currently amount to USD 245,000, with 375,000 owed to the pension fund.

Australia's National Union of Workers (NUW) has rallied behind an immigrant Sudanese poultry worker who was sacked for raising allegations of racisim at his workplace. In the process, the union has helped spotlight a brutally exploitative workplace regime at one of the country's leading 'ethically  produced' poultry brands. The union's 'Free range chicken - caged workers' campaign has spurred a government investigation into conditions at the Lilydale factory in Adelaide. The Lilydale brand belongs to Baiada, Australia's largest poultry producer.

When Korea joined the OECD in 1996, a condition of adherence was a commitment to reform its industrial relations legislation in line with ILO standards. Not only has there been no reform, but the situation has markedly deteriorated.

In the runup to the G20* meeting scheduled for November 11-12 in Seoul, South Korea, international union organizations are calling for pressure on the Korean government to bring its repressive labour law and employment regime into line with international standards and its own commitments.

Are we witnessing a replay of the 2008 hyperinflation in the price of basic foodstuffs which pushed hundreds of millions of people already living on the margins into the ranks of the acutely hungry?

Workers at the Belkozin plant in the northern Ukrainian town of Priluki have won wage increases totaling 54% following strike action in May, a long mobilization and tough bargaining by the plant organization of the IUF-affiliated Agro-Industrial Workers' Union of Ukraine.

The almost 1,200 workers at the JBS plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania, have voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1776.