‘Kaleidoscopic’ Worker Protests Grow in Iran

international | workers issues | other press Friday March 05, 2010 15:04 by David Morbeg

David Morbeg writes on the growth in Workers Struggle in Iran. How Independent Unions are once again being formed after decades of suppression first under the Shah then under the Theocracy. Full text at url below.

Iranian advocates of democracy have taken to the streets regularly since the fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, promoting a “green revolution” against the heavy-handed, repressive theocracy that rules the country. But there’s another wave of protests that, if linked to the green movement, could greatly strengthen the opposition and give it a more pronounced social-democratic character.

Late last week, for example, workers from the Shiraz Iran Telecommunications Industries blocked highways and sat in the provincial governor’s mansion for three days to protest 13 months of unpaid wages. A few weeks earlier, workers at the Mobarake steel complex in Isfahan staged hunger strikes on two days over pay and pension cuts.

"I had always believed in the labor movement," says Pourzad, who now works with a nascent organization of printers. "I had friends and relatives who were sympathetic to the labor movement, in particular one older individual, a mentor for myself, who was involved in pre-1953 labor activities. I just instinctively and intellectually believe that was the way to go for myself and the best possible solution for the country’s problems.”

Only a few labor union activists are public; the rest are more anonymous in their work. “There are many, many individual campaigns going on–people doing educational and organizational work,” he says. “They’re not admitting what they’re doing.” Government monitoring of worker activity is “unbelievable.”