Global News Agencies and Workers' Protests in Iran

By Farid Partovi, March 16, 2000

While workers in Iran are vigorously fighting back the new anti-worker bill, which excludes workshops with five or below five employees from the labour law provisions and the social security protections, mainstream news agencies are continuing with their distortion of truth.

On March 8, 2000, thousands of workers in Iran demonstrated against the new anti-worker bill passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Islamic Republic of Iran's parliament or Majlis). Protesting workers, majority of them working in industrial and production units and many of them women, condemned the new law as total violation of the international labour standards such as the ILO's conventions and other internationally recognized workers' rights. Workers promised if the new law, which approximately affects three million workers, is not withdrawn, a national strike movement would happen on May 1st, the International Workers' Day.

But, guess how some global news agencies, such as the Reuters and France Press (AFP) covered the story:

Reuters-March 8, 2000: "…. It said workers from across Iran gathered to demand the scrapping of the measure, under which firms with up to five workers would be exempted from rules that make it nearly impossible to fire workers and impose a wide range of benefits, including mandatory bonuses and generous severance payments…. The bill was passed last month as part of reforms to encourage investment in small enterprises, which critics say is hampered by the high costs of doing business under the existing labour law. Iran introduced the earlier law after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, reflecting the socialist mood of the era and general support for the economic underclass, whose cause the revolutionary government championed".

AFP, after reporting on the news of workers' protest in Iran on March 8th, commented that " it goes against the labour regulations passed when parliament had a radical majority, which favour workers' rights over those of employers" (March 8, 2000-Agence France Presse).

The truth is that the existing labour law constituted by the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a repressive and anti-worker law depriving Iran's working class of many internationally recognized workers' rights and freedoms. It does not recognize the right to organize free and independent workers' organizations, the right to strike, full and direct participation of workers in pay negotiations, unemployment insurance, maternity or parental leave, work time reduction (the working time under the current law is 44-hour week) and job security. The existing labour law discriminates against women workers, immigrant workers (more than one million immigrant workers from Afghanistan are not covered by any labour law or income security programs), allows mandatory over-time, and facilitate favorable conditions for workers' expulsion and lay off. The current law is just a reactionary pro-capitalist legislation. It doesn't even consider the ILO's strategies on socio-economic security and its "seven dimensions of work-based security, which are: income security; employment security, job security, work (occupational health and safety) security; skill development security and voice representation security" (ILO, InFocus programme on socio-economic security).

Since the Islamic Republic of Iran conquered the 1979 revolution for freedom and equality and brutally took the state power, it tried four times to pass its current labour law. However, it every time was faced with workers' protests and rejection. So, the IRI ruled the country without any labour law for approximately 12 years until early 1991. Throughout the whole process and after its approval, the current labour law received strong condemnation by working class organizations all over the world. It was condemned because of its reactionary pro-capitalist, anti-labour and anti-women rules and regulations. The existing law was only a response by the Islamic Republic of Iran to the needs of employers and owners of businesses in early 1990's in Iran. It was set to create a huge population of cheap and voiceless labour with no rights to strike or organize freely.

Workers and their families in Iran have already been paying the price of twenty years of anti-labour legal, social and economic policies and practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A solid majority of people in Iran lives in poverty. We have massive unemployment and underemployment. Unemployment among youth, the highest percentage of Iran's population, and women is extremely high. Average wages are considerably lower than the average costs of living in Iran. Inflation is very high and most people have lost their purchasing power, even for basic needs such as food, clothing and housing. There is a major problem of unpaid and delayed wages too. Hundreds of thousands of workers, from both private and public sectors, have not received their wages, on average between 6 to 24 months. This list can go on, and you can add the undeniable factors of continuous political repression and gender apartheid rules of the Islamic regime of Iran and reach a conclusion. So, dear news agencies, please don't talk to the working people in Iran or elsewhere about "the high costs of doing business under the existing labour law". Don't disseminate misinformation by connecting "the socialist mood of the era and general support for the economic underclass" in 1979 revolution to a labour law that could only be passed as the result of the IRI's bloody crush of socialists and labour activists in early years of the revolution.

What actually are happening in Iran, with this new anti-worker bill and other anti-labour practices, are in fact another efforts by global and national corporations and businesses and their government in Iran to create even more favourable conditions for capital investment and its other needs in Iran. This is a part and parcel of the current global attack on workers' rights and working and living conditions. It must be confronted globally by workers and their organizations and all progressive groups.

How much more the human needs and aspirations must be suppressed and silenced so that the profit makers can flourish more and more? The fact is that in Iran we already have the highest ever gap between the rich and the poor. Consequently, even if they wouldn't be able to get the final approval for their anti-worker bill, the working class in Iran could not continue with this unbearable situation. No wonder the escalating protests of workers in different industries and strike actions and militant demonstrations are becoming an everyday reality in Iran. Furthermore, workers' strives to organize freely without any influence by the regime is going to be a serious challenge but also a fact of upcoming class struggles in Iran. With this new anti-worker bill or without it, working people's fight back and struggles is certainly going to continue. For workers, there is no other choice.