US raids Iraqi Trade Union

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Saturday December 13, 2003 13:15

by James McKenna

U.S. occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions with a series of arrests this weekend.

On Dec. 6 the US military attacked the old headquarters building of the Transport and Communications Workers union, which has been used since June as the office of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). Twenty soldiers jumped out, stormed into the building, put handcuffs on eight members of the Federation's executive board, and took them into detention.

"They gave no reason at all, despite being asked over and over," says IFTU spokesperson Abdullah Muhsin.

The eight trade unionists were released without charge the next day . The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the U.S. occupation government in Iraq gave no reason for the detentions.

Qasim Hadi, general secretary of the Union of the Unemployed had been arrested twice before by occupation troops, for leading demonstrations of unemployed workers demanding unemployment benefits and jobs.

As many as 7 million people, or 70 percent of the workforce, have no jobs, according to the Unemployed Union. Some go hungry and sometimes become homeless. Although Congress appropriated $87 billion for reconstruction, Dr. Nuri Jafer, the deputy minister of Labor and Social Affairs says he can find "no country willing to fund our plans" for a minimal system of unemployment benefits.

Work may be proceeding on pipelines and ports for oil exports, but huge piles of war rubble lie untouched in Baghdad streets. U.S. funding in Iraq pays for an overwhelming military presence and the transformation of the Iraqi economy. Both are intended to make the country attractive to foreign investors.

In an Oct. 8 phone press conference, Thomas Foley, director for private sector development for the CPA, announced a list of the first Iraqi state enterprises to be sold, including cement and fertilizer plants, phosphate and sulfur mines, pharmaceutical factories and the country's airline. On Sept. 19, the CPA published Order No. 39, which permits 100 percent foreign ownership of businesses -- except for the oil industry -- and allows the transfer of profits outside the country.

Iraqi workers fear privatization will bring massive layoffs. "I'll have to fire 1,500 (of the refinery's 3,000) workers," says Dathar Al-Kashab, manager of the Al Daura oil refinery. "In America, when a company lays people off, there's unemployment insurance and they won't die from hunger. If I dismiss employees now, I'm killing them and their families."

At the refinery, as in most factories, those with jobs work 11- and 13-hour shifts. Al Daura workers earn $60 a month. They have no safety shoes, goggles, masks or other protective gear. The IFTU helped the refinery's workers organize a union and elect its leaders. In Basra, workers have formed a central labor council and mounted demonstrations. The Workers Unions and Councils group has helped workers elect committees in the State Leather Industry plant, the largest shoe factory in the Middle East, and the Mamoun Vegetable Oil enterprise, among others.

When these new unions try to talk with the plant managers, however, they're told that a 1987 law forbids workers in state-owned enterprises (where the majority of Iraqis work) from forming unions. The CPA still enforces this Saddam-era law. Another order issued by the CPA on June 6 threatens that anyone who "incites civil disorder" will be detained as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention.

While unions are being suppressed, international conferences in Washington and London take place every week, at which Iraqi assets are put on sale to private buyers. At one recent conference, ExxonMobil, Delta Airlines and the American Hospital Group all expressed interest in various Iraqi enterprises.

Resistance at the work site has been made illegal by laws banning unions and by the arrest of their leaders