However, watchdogs found that the acquisitions have led to land grabs from farmers, the rise of monopolies because farmers are obliged to sell to the private operator running a ‘cluster’ – value-added cotton production centres – in their locality, as well as reprisals against staff for voicing complaints.
The Uzbekistani state benefits from the cluster system as it attracts foreign direct investment – big business can bring in additional investment, such as loans from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, and the government gets to hand over responsibility for labour rights to the private sector.
The saga surrounding Indorama Agro – an agribusiness that is part of the Singapore-based chemical holding giant, Indorama – and its workers provide an illustration of Uzbekistan’s new cotton cluster system in action.
Land acquisition has enabled the company to build a monopoly and control the entire production chain. Indorama has a plant in Kokand, which produces fertilisers and chemicals for agricultural needs, as well as a textile factory and cotton fields in the Syrdarya and Kashkadarya regions.
FE Indorama Agro LLC is among the major cotton farms in Uzbekistan, controlling almost 100,000 hectares of agricultural land. A report from March last year stated that the company employed about 3,200 people in cotton production.
It’s unclear whether the new cluster system has led to improvements for workers. Many employees operate on seasonal contracts, which exclude social benefits. This is why Rosa Agaydarova, an accountant at Indorama Agro, moved to found the Xalq Birligi (People’s Unity) union last month.
Agaydarova has accused Indorama Agro of consistently violating workers’ rights through poor working conditions, low wages and gender segregation. Founding the union was a bold grassroots move to try to regain some control in a sector that has traditionally been tightly managed by state officials, both at local and national level, and now by international commerce.
Poor conditions
One employee, on the condition of anonymity, described conditions at Indorama Agro: “Seasonal workers are especially vulnerable, both women and men – no healthcare service, low pay and no paid vacation. In general, people did not understand the benefits they can get from a membership [in an indepedent union].
“Workers were unaware of their labour rights and their legal literacy was extremely low. But when [our union] was initiated, the workers did not doubt: many were tired and could no longer tolerate extremely poor working conditions, low wages, disrespect and humiliation from managers and foreign staff any more.”
Before founding the union, Agaydarova came to attention when she won a legal suit against Indorama Agro for illegally firing her, at a time when conflicts between management and workers regarding the use of precarious seasonal contracts and gender inequality were coming to the surface.
Although the emerging union gained wide international support, it faced triple resistance during its initiation: from the company itself, the district administration and law enforcement institutions, as well as the local trade union, which is a member of the Federation of Trade Unions of Uzbekistan (FTUU). The FTUU is an umbrella organisation for all existing sectoral and territorial unions in the country.
On top of this, thousands of jobs in the Syrdarya region were under pressure after the region suffered from a cataclysmic dam burst. In January, more than 100 local workers were fired in the nearby Kashkadarya region as a result of the tragedy.
“When the union was initiated, the company became very aggressive against us,” the Indorama employee said. “Managers used psychological pressure, humiliated and threatened employees with being fired. Representatives of the government trade union [e.g. a FTUU member organisation], in turn, lobbied and said that the workers will benefit from joining the government trade union, as they already have various resources [material and human] to help the workers.”
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Radmir Khajbakhteev | Radio Free (2021-04-29T05:40:37+00:00) Recent workers’ victory reveals the rot in Uzbekistan’s public life. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2021/04/29/recent-workers-victory-reveals-the-rot-in-uzbekistans-public-life/
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