Despite the fact the reactionary rulers in Iran have stepped up attacks on working people following Washington’s brutal war moves, Iran’s workers and its oppressed nationalities are increasingly speaking out and organizing protests and strikes against the deteriorating living conditions and repression they face.
Contract workers at the Gachsaran Oil and Gas Company in southwestern Iran stopped work Oct. 27 and rallied outside the company’s office to protest the bosses’ attacks on their wages, benefits and working conditions.
The Council for Organizing Protests by Oil Contract Workers reported the workers’ demands include elimination of labor contractors and converting their jobs to direct employment by the company, ending discriminatory deductions from workers’ wages and greater protection of workers’ rights.
They have won solidarity from workers in other oil-producing regions in southern Iran, including in South Pars, at the National Iranian Drilling Company. According to the council, these workers have organized protest actions against the nonpayment of government-approved war allowance allocations, onerous transportation costs and sky-high food prices.
Oil workers sent solidarity messages to the contract workers organizing council. “Under the pressure of poverty, destitution and hunger, they will not allow any form of government coercion or threats to prevent them from expressing their anger and dissatisfaction,” the council said. Among workers employed directly by the oil companies, who get some benefits not offered to contract workers, complaints are growing over working conditions and a cap on wages.
A worker at one Gachsaran plant went into the company’s office to complain about the food and was attacked by a representative of the contractor with a machete, injuring his hand, Afkarnaft, an association of permanent workers, reported.
“Oil workers are asking for neither charity nor special privileges,” Afkarnaft said. “They have the right to receive healthy, high-quality food and to voice their protests without fear of threats or retaliation.”
Iranian Air retirees rally
Hundreds of retired Iran Air workers rallied in Tehran Oct. 27, protesting cuts in their healthcare coverage and pensions. The workers “demanded that their claims be addressed,” the Free Union of Iranian Workers reported. This is not a “temporary or one-off request,” but “an effort to obtain adequate medical services, livelihood security and the protection of the legal rights of those who have served this company.”
“Approximately 13,000 retirees and pension recipients of this company are facing livelihood difficulties,” Jalal Hashemi, chairman of the board of directors of the Retirees’ Association of Iran Air, told the media. “No one should be forced to choose between buying medicine and providing their daily food.”
Prices have risen nearly 89% over the past year, Iran’s Statistical Center reports. More workers are unable to cover the cost of basic necessities, from food to healthcare to housing.
The regime’s fear of the working class is reflected in articles by the government-funded Iranian Labour News Agency about these worsening conditions. “My pension is around 10.5 million tomans” a month, about $76, retired construction worker Hamid Alaee told ILNA. “Meat has been absent from our tables for a long time.” Many other items have tripled in prices over the past year, including for eggs and potatoes.
“Over just the past three or four years, many construction workers have been deprived of insurance coverage,” Alaee said. “We construction workers have built the towers and buildings in which ordinary people and officials live, but we ourselves have been deprived of many facilities and rights.”
Other workers are facing layoffs, with months of outstanding back pay withheld. ILNA reported that the Khavar Spinning and Weaving factory in Rasht in north-central Iran had shut down production with all 107 workers owed three months’ back pay. When the factory started up again in October, only 40 people were called back. The others are still fighting for the money they’re owed and to get their jobs back.