Iraqi trade unions

By Martin Thomas For the first time since early 2005, there are the beginnings of a workers’ upsurge in Iraq. According to the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions, several groups of workers have taken action in a wave of the successful strikes over wages and conditions by southern oil workers on 22 August. “On Sunday 3 September, hundreds of health sector workers struck in Nasiriyah and Umara city (in the south). They demanded higher average salaries and renewed payment of contagious disease compensation. “The strike continued for three days, but the workers have received nothing but...

Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress, a movement initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, spoke to Martin Thomas when he visited London in July. Oil workers in southern Iraq are planning to strike against the sectarian militias — the Iraq Freedom Congress is asking all its members to support it. The demands are: • Abolition of all contracts which include imposed privatisation. • The disbanding and expulsion of armed militias from Iraqi cities. • An end to the killing of workers by the armed militias in Iraqi cities. • Continued distribution of food rations. • Continued...

by Alan Porter On 1 August the Worker-communist Party of Iraq and related campaigning organizations staged a protest against state terror in Iraqi Kurdistan. That week forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, part of the Kurdish government, had opened fire on a picket line at the Tasloja cement factory in Sulimaniya. Early reports had indicated that the PUK had killed 3 and injured 13 of the workers, who were striking for a pay rise and the reinstatement of 300 sacked workers. Fortunately, it later became clear that the workers rumoured dead were in fact ‘only’ badly injured. Nevertheless...

By Martin Thomas According to the Iraq Freedom Congress, a grouping initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, oil workers in southern Iraq are planning a strike which “aims to bring security and build a free and democratic society in Iraq”. The IFC reports: “The oil workers will strike for the following demands: • Abolition of all contracts including privatisation imposed on the workers of Iraq, particularly oil workers; • An end to the killing of workers committed by the armed militias in Iraqi cities. • Redistribution of the ration food without taking away any item listed in the...

BY David Broder On July 1st activists working to solidarise with the Iraqi labour movement held a conference in London to discuss the prospects of workers in Iraq and what can be done over here to help the struggle against the US/UK occupation and political Islam. The conference brought together members of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Iraq Union Solidarity, Solidarité Irak, Pagine Marxiste, the Alliance for Workers' Liberty and the Worker-communist Party of Iran (Hekmatist). It got messages of support from US Labor Against the War, the Australian group AusIraq and socialists in Poland...

According to Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (GUOE), the Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers’ union, both abroad and within Iraq. This comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. (At the time the government said it would introduce law to ‘regulate’ trade union organisations and their activities). The GUOE organises over 23,000 oil and gas...

by Martin Thomas About 20,000 marched in London on 18 March against US/ UK troops in Iraq, and against war on Iran. Workers’ Liberty activists and others distributed leaflets for the Iraq Union Solidarity campaign, and did a bucket collection for the Iraqi unions which raised £289, about the same as on the bigger demonstration of March 2005 and much more than on the last “Stop The War” demonstration, September 2005. The “Stop The War” organisers, however, did not share the desire of many demonstrators to hear and support the voice of Iraq’s organised workers. Dashty Jamal, a British...