Erin Radford, program officer at the Solidarity Center, sends us this request for action to support Iraqi union leaders in their struggle for bargaining and other workplace rights.
Iraqi workers across the country have faced harassment, threats and even criminal charges for forming unions despite their hopes for democracy. But Iraq’s unions are fighting back—and they need your support.
Iraq’s 1987 labor law abolished the right to collectively bargain, the right to strike and the minimum wage. It reclassified all public-sector workers (approximately 90 percent of the workforce) as “civil service” and prohibited them from forming unions. The Iraqi government has chosen to enforce this outdated law, refusing to negotiate with unions and declaring them “illegal.”
You can take action by signing the International Call for a Fair and Just Labor Law. Or write to the Iraqi Embassy. Click here to find contact information. There’s a great interview here with Hashmeya Musshin al-Saadawi, president of the Electicity Workers and Employees Union in Basra about the labor campaign.
Without the protection of a labor law in line with international labor standards, Iraqi workers and their unions are regularly subjected to exploitation and violations of their internationally recognized workers’ rights. In response, workers and unions from across the country—from Basra to Iraqi Kurdistan—have come together in protest. The Iraqi Labor Campaign, launched in November 2009 with support from the International Trade Union Confederation, is demanding the government put in place a fair and just labor law that guarantees Iraqi workers and unions their fundamental rights at work and allows the formation of free and independent trade unions. The campaign is also a pioneering effort to bridge religious, political, ethnic and geographic divides in the face of often tremendous personal risk.
Already, the campaign has achieved significant success. Some 85 members of Parliament have signed the campaign appeal, along with leaders of community organizations, businesses and political leaders. The key parliamentary drafting committee has consulted with the campaign’s coordinating group, and Members of Parliament are petitioning for the legislation to be debated in Parliament.
The AFL-CIO has long supported Iraqi workers in their fight for basic workers’ rights and democracy at work. Last fall, the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center brought leaders from five Iraqi unions to Washington, D.C., to highlight their struggle with AFL-CIO leaders and U.S. government policymakers. The Iraqis also attended the AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, where the AFL-CIO passed its most recent resolutions on Iraq. The AFL-CIO strongly supports the Iraqi labor movement’s latest push for worker rights through this campaign.
But as recently as April 2, the Iraqi government ordered the immediate transfer of four prominent leaders—including the president and vice-president—of Iraq’s Basra-based Refinery Workers Union out of their jobs. The transfer appears to have been issued as punishment of these union organizers. It came on the heels of weeks of negotiations and disputes between the union and refinery management.
“Punishing workers for organizing and holding peaceful demonstrations to advocate for their interests is an unfortunately common practice in Iraq,” noted Solidarity Center Interim Executive Director Nancy Mills.
Iraq needs to immediately replace the outdated anti-union labor laws that bar union organizing and collective bargaining with new laws which recognize the fundamental democratic rights of workers, once and for all.
