Thursday, March 16, 2006

Iran Automobile factory workers protest

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.
On Thursday, March 9th, 300 workers from the Iran Auto factory gathered in protest. Several of the workers who had contacted the regime-run FARS news agency announced the details of their protest that went on until 1:45 A.M. According to the workers, the protest started from the beginning of the afternoon shift workers and workers from other shifts joined in or replaced workers who had already been present for their own shift. READ MORE

The workers announced: "The general manager claims that he has done the utmost to decrease the cost of production just so that he can claim it in his annual report however he does not explain that those decreases are coming out of the pay and benefit packages of the workers. Instead of making effort to improve production methods and decreasing the production costs for real, he just slashes our livelihood. At the Iran Auto factory a number of cars with the latest and special accessories have been built, as bonus for the upper management. Today though we were protesting, we were still able to output 700 cars; during an average day, we output 2100."

Reports indicate that in 3 shifts, Iran Automobile factory employs 20,000 workers who are entirely responsible for all the production.