More Worker Protests in Future

Shahram Rafizadeh, Rooz Online:

Two days ago, Mohammad Sharif, the defense attorney for the detainees that were arrested during Labor Day protests in the Kurdish town of Saqez, announced that five of the detainees had been tried and sentenced to prison terms. The Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced these workers to confinement at a time when worker protests have been on the rise on the country, the most recent strikes belonging to the large Sherkate Vahed Company that operates the Tehran bus system, and tens of other smaller companies around the country.

The government and the striking workers have held rounds and rounds of talks, but the government has not done anything to resolve the issue workers are facing. Workers strikes are seen as one of the principal challenges that the new hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will have to deal with as the strikes are expected to grow in size and probably intensity. READ MORE

Iranian workers were initially introduced to the international labor movement about one hundred years ago. Workers who had gone to Russia were introduced to the idea of organizing workers into syndicates and trade unions to increase their awareness about their rights and to unite to get better terms from employers. This was also the time when Iran was going through its Constitutional revolution that limited the powers of the king in Tehran. The calls for an 8-hour work day, and land for peasants during the movement were the work of these unions.

According to historians, the first workers union was formed in Iran about one hundred years ago in a printing house in Tehran. In four years’ time it encompassed all the workers working in the printing and publishing plants. Soon workers in other industries followed suit. Workers in the towns of Mashad, Tabriz, Bandar Anzali, etc got themselves organized.

About 85 years ago, Iranian trade unions claimed more than 30,000 workers. The first large-scale strike by workers is known as the 14-day strike and it belonged to the workers of the printing and publishing industry. This strike was against private publishing companies. But things began to change when the workers of the oil industry in Abadan, the home of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and then the National Iranian Oil Company went on strike against their employer, who in this case was the government. Some of the successes of the movement were the government’s acceptance of the 8-hour day and permission to join the international workers movement by celebrating May 1st, as the International Labor Day.

What has followed since then has been different waves of suppressions, then freedoms, then suppressions again of the workers movement to improve their professional life. The role of the oil industry strikes in the 1979 revolution are well known.

After the revolution, the workers movement slowed down its activities. Islamic societies and associations began to replace workers guilds and syndicates and take over their functions. Soon Khane Kargar (the House of Workers) was founded with the same aim of undermining true workers unions. But since about 15 years ago, workers again began to organize themselves and form trade unions as they witnessed the futility of the efforts of the Islamic groups in providing their needs.

In addition to workers organizations, their protests too have been on the rise in recent years. During the last few months hundreds of workers in all fields and in all corners of the country have gone on strike. And since the largest employer in Iran continues to be the government, the demands these workers are making are against the government or their appointed managers. Saadata Nasajan, Meh Nakh, Faranj, Madnakh Gazvin, Shahoo, Gand in Dezfoul, West Alborz Stone and Coal, Sishe Miral, Chini Mehdi, Iran Barq, Farsh Gilan, Foomanat, are the names of just some of the companies whose workers have been on strike just during the last 3 months. Some workers are on strike because they have not received their pay for the past 25 months. Others, especially those belonging to public companies that have been handed over to the private sector, have been protesting because of lay offs without any compensations. There are other companies whose line of activity has been threatened requiring less manpower, thus more unemployment.

Workers have many demands that range from health benefits to working conditions, unemployment benefits, etc. Specialists point out that most of the regulations of the International Labor Organization are not met in Iran’s factories and plants. Frank Gasemzadeh, a specialist in workers health says “most workers are deprived of their natural rights.” Many workers do not even make the 250,000 Rials that the government has set as the poverty line. According to a Majlis representative, more than one million workers in the construction industry routinely engage in physical confrontations with their employer just to get their weekly or monthly pay.

A sociologist attributes most of the problems that workers face to wrong economic decisions, the existence of discrimination, inattention to scientific management, the passage of bad legislature, and most importantly the suppression of workers guilds.

Government officials are concerned about these protests and the direction they are taking. According to Ibrahim Madadi, a leader in the Sherkate Vahed Workers Syndicate, “the recent Sherkate Vahed protests that turned violent came about because the peaceful demands of the workers within their syndicate rights were not met and because 17 of them who had participated in the demonstrations and sit-ins, were expelled.

The demands that workers raise are not always violent. For example the latest protests that the drivers of Sherkate Vahed (Tehran’s bus company) had began as an open letter. Some time down the road, the drivers demonstrated their solidarity and seriousness about their problems by turning on the headlights of their buses on a particular day. (Unlike many countries, car lights are not turned on in Iran during the day.) But nothing worked until eventually violence broke out as security agents tried to break up demonstrations and sit-ins. The workers were protesting the cut in their over-pay payments, changes in the routes they had worked in for years, absence of expected and routine promotions and undue warnings by authorities.

The officials of the Sherkate Vahed syndicate say that since the government has tried to crack down on the strikers, membership in the syndicate is sharply on the rise as more workers wish to join in and fight for their rights. It is the way the government has been approaching the demands of the workers and the increase in the membership of their trade guilds that makes observers believe that unless major changes are forthcoming, the future will bring about more widespread workers protests which would lead to more non-peaceful methods.