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News Release For Immediate Release: February 28, 2000 WORKERS PROTEST AGAINST NEW ANTI-LABOUR BILL Thousands of angry workers protested on Monday, February 28, 2000 in Tehran and other major cities in Iran against an anti-worker bill passed by the Majles (parliament) on Sunday exempting small workshops from labour Laws. Demonstrators, gathered in front of the Majles (parliament), denounced the bill as both "insulting and humiliating to the workers and a sell out of workers to the workshop owners". The new law provides that workshops with a workforce of five or less are exempted from provisions stipulated in the Labour Law for a period of six years. This law would jeopardize the lives of at least 2.5 millions workers who work in thousands of small workshops throughout the country. This new law will allow employers to lay off workers, downsize the units or fix the wages accordingly without any control whatsoever. These measures allow bosses of small firms to escape paying social security premiums and other required charges for their workers. The Islamic Republic's current labour law is a repressive law that Deprives workers of all internationally recognized labour rights such as the right to organize and strike. For many years, workers in Iran have been struggling to achieve their basic rights and demands, including the right to organize free and independent workers' organizations, the right to strike, the right to direct decision making on workers' wages and benefits, extensive unemployment benefits for all workers, job security, a minimum wage equivalent and responsive to the needs of a family of five, regular wage increases, etc. This latest attack on workers' rights by the Islamic Republic of Iran is to drive more workers and their families to extreme poverty and lack of rights which the regime has imposed on working people in Iran for the past 21 years. It must be stopped immediately! The International Alliance in Support of Workers' Struggles in Iran strongly condemns this new anti-worker bill passed by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Parliament. This total violation of the most basic workers' rights must face absolute denunciation of the workers and their organizations all over the world. ************** Workers' Protest Actions Are Escalating! Protesting Workers Blocked Karaj Road, Demanding their Wages March 2, 2000 Workers' protests against non-payment of their wages and bonuses have Been escalating throughout past year. More than 500 manufacturing plants, With the workforce of at least 400,000 have not been paying wages to their employees in the last 3 to 24 months. Sit-ins, Strike actions, demonstrations and blockage of roads are some of the methods used by protesting workers in their struggles against delayed payment of wages and for improved working conditions and better social and income security programs. Many of these protests don't get the media coverage and thus the actual extent of workers' protest activities in Iran is not known to millions of concerned workers and their organizations in other countries. In spite of this, Iran's workers continue their struggles, and they have been, successively, leaving no other choice for the government-sponsored media but to recognize and publish workers' actions. The following latest news on a direct action taken by workers of a furniture manufacturing company in Tehran, published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), is an example of growing dissatisfaction and anger of Iran's working class with their unbearable working and living conditions imposed by the ruling class and the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). "3/01/2000 Protesting workers block Karaj road, Tehran, March 1, IRNA Some 200 workers of Mobliran (furniture manufacturer) company located On kilometer 10 of Karaj special road, west of the capital Tehran, Wednesday morning blocked the west-east lane of the road to traffic in protest to Not being paid in the past 20 months. " Having been not paid for 20 months has halted education of some of the children of the workers, resulted In forced divorce and also homelessness of several others," said the protesting workers. The protest was made today when electricity was cut at Mobliran factory due to its heavy debt to the Power Company which stopped operation of the machinery as well as the heating system. Workers said that in their latest protest held in front of the labor ministry, officials had promised them to resume production as well as pay the workers before the turn of the year (Iranian year ends on March 21 this year). About 300 workers of the factory staged protest gathering in front of the labor ministry last month and called for the attention of the officials to their demand. Labor minister Hussein Kamali told the last month gathering of workers that given mismanagement at the factory, the labor ministry has called for administration of the factory by the government. The minister had pointed to the ceding of shares of the factory to the private sector as the root cause of the situation and said he had predicted the present status quo one a half year ago. Mobliran factory was ceded to the private sector in 1992 and the present 270 workers of the plant are only a small portion of the larger staff who have been either expelled or received some compensation before being dismissed. Meanwhile, officials of labor institutions are trying to convince the workers to clear the road and negotiations are underway to pay at least parts of their delayed salary." What the IRI's labour minister is trying to avoid is the fact that his government's repressive and anti-worker policies and practices - lack of the right to organize free and independent workers' organizations and the right to strike, persecution of labour activists and political opponents, lay offs, cut backs and privitizations and pursuing the "economic readjustment" policies of the international Monetary Fund and global and national corporations, etc. - are in fact the "root cause of the situation". The government and its labour institutions might have been able to "convince" the protesting workers - most probably by force, intimidation or empty promises - to end their blockage of the Karaj Road, but the country-wide protests of workers for the realization of their rights and demands will certainly move forward.
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