In Iran, a corrupt and theocratic regime has made life extremely difficult for workers and for the poor, and indeed for the great majority of that country’s citizens. Almost 50 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; the unemployment rate is about 20 percent. According to Mir Hussein Mousavi, the reformist candidate, more than 1,500 factories have closed in recent years. Inflation runs around 30 percent, in part due to mismanagement of the budget by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. (In a mere four years, Ahmadinejad’s government has had access to $270 billion of oil income; in the previous 26 years, oil income was $400 billion.) At the same time, the country has undergone increased privatization of an oligopolistic nature, in which state firms are sold—underpriced--to those with connections to the regime’s insiders, among them the rich and powerful. As a result, the country’s wealth (surplus social value) is being re-distributed, mainly in favor of a tiny minority. The richest 10 percent of the population has 21 times more income than those in the lowest 10 percent. In the last 30 years, the clerical rulers and their economic partners in the traditional commerce centers (bazaars) have brutally suppressed the legitimate emancipatory and just economic demands of the people, particularly the poor, the working class, women and youth. These oppressors have been joined by security/military ranking members whose organizations either own major financial firms (The Foundation of oppressed) or exert control on the basis of friendly privatization of previously state-run economic institutions.

So far, the Islamic Republic has been able to maintain its power. This is due to multiple factors, among them internal repression by the theocratic autocrats, external threats from imperialistic foreign powers, a persistent level of religious fetishism among the more traditional segments of the population (mostly in the provinces), and existence of some support for the regime among the security forces, including those in the Revolutionary Guards and the Paramilitary Basiji vigilantes, along with most of their families.

In the recent mass demonstrations against the sham presidential election results (clearly rigged in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with the support of Ali Khamenei, the religious supreme leader), the Revolutionary Guards and Paramilitary Basiji participated in the violent attack against the protestors. In fact, in the past 30 years the regime has been able to suppress dissidents and periodic, short-lived uprisings, including the recent protest. It consistently plays the “anti-imperialist,” nationalist card and uses populist-religious propaganda. As a last resort, it does not hesitate to violently repress any mass resistance. Make no mistake: It is in the nature of this regime to repeat the barbaric acts of torture and mass executions of the 1980s if its political life is threatened.

In the meantime, the Iranian people have never stopped their resistance, striving for freedom, democracy, social justice and the democratic right for social self-determination. The labor movement in recent years has fought for its rights militantly. In the first months of the 1979 revolution the workers organized labor councils and seized some factories and institutions. Soon, however, political repression began, and these labor activists, along with progressive and socialist individuals and groups, were violently suppressed. Thereafter, regime-sponsored labor centers and institutions such as the Worker’s House and Islamic Labor Councils (ILCs) were installed to control workers. Under Iranian labor law, these councils can be set up in companies with more than 50 workers; their objectives are, among other things, to “propagate and spread Islamic culture, and defend the achievement of the Islamic Revolution....”

In the past few years have militant labor activists been spurred to have another go at organizing independent unions. Their efforts have been a response to the non-transparent phase of privatization, in which new owners, searching for quick profits, closed down many companies. That in turn caused a dramatic increase in mass layoffs and created increasingly difficult conditions for workers, who endured longer periods of pay delays and forced temporary employment at lower wages. Iran has, apparently, signed the charter of the International Labor Organization (ILO). Some activists, conscious of this, have made connections with a few international unions, including the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) and EI (Education International), according to The Trades Union Congress (briefing document, issued 13 April 2009, copyright ã Trade Union Congress 2009). The ITF (International Transport Worker’s Federation) and the IUF (International Union of Food Agriculture, Hotels, Restaurants, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations) called a worldwide action day on June 26, 2009 to demand recognition of basic democratic labor rights in Iran to help the Iranian workers.

In the recent labor struggles in Iran, some labor activists with radical political tendencies were able to form smaller solidarity groups, such as The Free Union of Workers in Iran, the Center for Worker’s Rights in Iran, the Coordinating Committee to Help Form Worker’s Organizations and the Committee to Pursue the Establishment of Free Worker’s Organizations. A key event was the announcement of the formation of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company in 2005 and its recognition by ITF and a few other international unions.

Another major move by the Iranian labor movement was the formation of the independent Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company, in October 2008, that brought the regime’s wrath down on the militant workers. Since 2005 members of the Bus Company Syndicate, and, in the last three years, labor activists belonging to the Haft Tapeh Syndicate, the Teacher’s Union, Painter’s Syndicate and many other labor groups have been harassed, flogged, tortured and sentenced to many years in prison. Among the labor activists incarcerated by the regime are Mansour Osanloo and Ebrahim Gohari, the leading members of the Bus Company Syndicate; Mahmoud Salehi, a militant baker worker; Reza Dehgham, a member of the Painter’s Syndicated; and Majid Hamidi, Mohsen Hakimi, Alireza Asgari and Hossein Gholami. In the last few years labor activists have celebrate the May 1st, International Workers’ Day. The regime has made it clear it will not tolerate such moves, and it has strongly suppressed such important symbolic actions. As a result, many are still in prison or are taken to court for participating in May 1st celebrations and similar activities. Nevertheless, efforts by militant workers have had important political reverberations in Iran. The proclamations issued by labor activists include a statement, released May 1, 2009, that indicates a politically sophisticated labor force. It reads, in part: “The workers of Iran face severely low wages, mass layoffs and expulsions, non-payment of wages for millions of workers, enforcement of temporary work contracts, subcontracting … blank-signed contracts, arrest and incarceration of workers, repression of workers’ protests and organizations … medieval sentences … flogging workers ... violations of worker’ rights … Such oppressive conditions have gone [on] for years…. We workers … are the organized producers of all wealth and riches in the society and consider it our most basic right to live in peace and comfort according to the highest standard of today’s humanity.” The statement continues by raising numerous demands, including:
• Guaranteed job security
•Immediate increase in minimum wages
• The right to form independent workers’ organizations
• Full equality for women
• Release of all incarcerated workers
• The recognition of May 1 as an official holiday.

It is clear that the labor movement in Iran has already developed to the stage of militancy. Only another bloody suppression could keep it from moving forward. In the recent demonstrations against the undemocratic presidential election, in the months of June and July 2009, organized labor solidly supported the people’s demands for free elections, civil liberties, political democracy and economic justice. Although the labor activists are not united and the pro-socialist opposition is very weak, certain radical groups nevertheless stress participating in the people’s struggle to change the existing political system. For example, among the demands raised by the coordinating committee to help form workers’ organizations are “unconditional political freedom” and freedom of association, including the “anti-capitalist organization” (June 30). Another group, the Committee in Solidarity for Formation of Construction Labor Union, supported the mass revolt and in a statement called for a “free and democratic election,” freedom of political parties and freedom to demonstrate. Undoubtedly, the Iranian working class is already involved in the ongoing democratic struggle.