To: Labour and Progressive
Organizations and concerned individuals
Re: Urgent Action Requested
on International Appeal in Defence of Workers’ Rights in Iran
The Iranian working class is
deprived of numerous internationally recognized human rights and labour
standards including the rights to organize freely and strike. The only formal
organizations that claim to be representing workers in Iran are mainly
suppressive tools of the regime such as the government-sponsored “Workers’
House”, “ Islamic Labour Councils” and also the recently formed “guild
associations”, for instance the Association of Iranian Journalists and the
Association of Truck Drivers that are basically instruments at the hands of the
Islamic Cooperation Front that retains the control of the Ministry of Labour
and a number of other ministries as well as the Islamic Consultative Assembly
(parliament). These groups should not
be allowed to attend labour conventions or any international conferences on
behalf of workers in Iran. We are alarmed that the ILO’s current rounds of
collaborations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, its Ministry of Labour and
these so called “labour arms” could possibly lead to a total disregard of the
ongoing struggles of Iranian workers to establish their own free labour
organizations and to achieve the right to strike.
We are calling on all free
organizations of workers globally, from national labour organizations to
international bodies like the ICFTU and Global Unions federations, to play an
active role in supporting Iranian workers’ efforts to organize themselves into
genuine and democratic labour organizations. This can be done through taking
various measures, such as adopting and acting on the attached resolution, pressuring
Iranian government, advocating with the ILO to cease its association with the
above government-sponsored “labour” groups, etc. However, we think one concrete
way of getting involved is to build bridges with Iranian workers directly and
support them in their struggles against employers’ and government’s attacks and
for the right to organize freely. The attached resolution is demanding a direct
observation by world’s labour organizations in such a process.
This appeal also addresses the
neo-liberal agenda of privatizations, lay offs, contracting out, outsourcing,
deregulations, and non-payment of wages, etc., which continues in full force in
Iran. This is a regime that
for the past 24 years has imposed the most unbearable political, economic, legal
and social conditions on the Iranian working class and deprived masses
including women, immigrant workers, youth, children and seniors. Almost 70
percent of Iran’s population now lives in an absolute poverty. The IRI’s recent waves of attacks on workers’
rights, including the exemption of workshops of 5 and 10 employees or less from
the minimal rights stipulated in the labour law and the withholding of wages to
more than one million workers, etc., have severely worsened the working and
living conditions of millions of working families in Iran. Parallel to all these economic and
political offensives by the government and capitalists, the security and
intelligent forces have relentlessly been repressing workers’ fightbacks,
protests and walkouts. All
employers’ groups, government’s apparatus and various parliamentary factions of
the Islamic Republic of Iran and the government of Khatami and its Ministry of
Labour are supporting and aggressively engaged in implementing this anti-worker
neo-liberal direction.
The attached appeal has thus far received support
from a considerable number of labour, social and political organizations and
concerned individuals, including the Canadian
Labour Congress, representing 2.5 million unionized workers, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and
the Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario as well as internationally
known progressive figures like Noam
Chomsky and István Mészáros.
The final list will be sent to the
ICFTU, Global Unions Federations, their affiliates and other international
labour organizations as well as the ILO, particularly the ILO’s workers’ group,
by the second half of March 2003.
Please support this campaign in any
ways you possibly can. If you have any questions or require
more information, please contact us at the address below. Thank you for your
support.
In solidarity,