ICEM Demands Release of Iraq Mechanics’ Union Leader

The ICEM today vehemently condemned the deepening trade union repression occurring in Iraq. In recent days, a youth leader of the Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) and three others were rounded up and presumably jailed, and Jamal Abdul-Jabbar, President of the Oil and Gas Workers’ Union of the GFIW in Kirkuk was forcibly transferred from his job at Northern Oil Company to a remote location due to his union activities.

On 27 May, plainclothes Iraqi security police in a civilian ambulance grabbed the four young activists as they were on their way to demonstrate in Tahrir Square, the central Baghdad flashpoint this year for protests. Taken away were Jihad Jalil, 27, a worker and Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union activist; Ahmed Alaa al Baghdaddi, 19; Moyaid Fasil al Taib, 29; and Ali Abdul-Khaliq, 24.

They were on their way into Tahrir Square near the Green Zone to manifest for trade union rights, jobs, basic services, political reform, and an end to corruption when police apprehended them for merely attempting to express their internationally recognised human rights, as well as rights under the Iraqi constitution.

In Iraq’s north, Jamal Abdul-Jabbar was forcibly transferred from his position at major Northern Oil installations in Kirkuk to a remote and isolated company site. He had led a walk-out in defence of contract workers at Kirkuk about a month ago. The transfer of elected union leaders away from any mass concentration of workers has been commonplace in Iraq over the past several years.

“The ICEM is angry that the Al-Maliki government is escalating trade union repression,” ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda said in a letter to the government. “Rather than persecuting Iraqi citizens for engaging in their fundamental human rights, the government must institutionalise free and independent trade unions in a modern labour law for peace and prosperity of all Iraqis.”

The ICEM expressed disheartenment that Iraq’s government is moving away from democratic reforms. It noted the implementation of Cabinet Decrees 95 and 96 in mid-April, which in part stripped away recognition of the GFIW and replaced it with a committee of non-elected and politically-biased officials from the Sadrist Party. The GFIW is affiliated to the ICEM.

Eight years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his regime’s prohibition against trade unions not officially connected to the Baathist regime continues, only with a different political covering. “By restricting trade unions and the right of workers to freely engage in democratic assemblies that will benefit their work lives, and Iraqi society as a whole, your government appears to be stepping back in time,” wrote the ICEM to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.

The ICEM also notes that last week’s apprehension of a Mechanics’ and Printers’ Union leader is not something new. On 27 March 2007, the union’s leader, Najim Abd-Jasem, was abducted from his home and three days later his body was found with clear signs he had been tortured before his murder.

For further information, contact ICEM Information Officer Dick Blin, dick.blin@icem.org, +41 22 304 1842.