To all world labour organisations

 

‘Iranian delegation should not have been admitted to the ILO conference’

‘We gave voice to millions of workers in Iran’

 

The 95th annual conference of the ILO was held in Geneva; once again with the Iranian regime’s delegation present at it.  We in the International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (ILSC-WPI), together with the workers in Iran, have every year protested against the presence of this anti-worker and anti-human regime at the conference.  This year, too, we demanded the expulsion from the ILO of the Islamic Republic in a number of letters to the ILO and to workers’ organisations across the world.  Also, Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate, Iran Khodro auto workers, a group of workers from East Tehran and the Trade Association of Electrical and Metal Workers in the city of Kermanshah sent their own protest letters to the ILO with regard to the presence of the representatives of Islamic Labour Councils and the so-called Workers’ House as representatives of Iranian workers.  However, the ILO only shrugged its shoulders at all such protests and, once again, approved the credentials of the Iranian regime’s delegation.

 

As against this, we, in collaboration with the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, organised a protest action on June 9 in front of the conference centre in Geneva to protest at this policy of the ILO towards the workers in Iran and to bring this to the attention of delegates from around the world.  A group representing our action then succeeded in gaining admission to the conference.  They could successfully expose the true character of the Iranian delegation and, thereby, enlighten the audience with regard to the purpose of our action.  They distributed copies of Workers in Iran, the paper of our committee, containing letters of protest by workers in Iran, as well as our letter to the ILO.  The literature met with sympathy and drew the close attention of many delegates.

 

On June 12, the second day of the action, Bahram Soroush and three other members of our delegation appeared on the conference stage, holding placards demanding the expulsion of the regime’s delegation and the immediate release from prison of Mansoor Ossanlou (President of Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate).  Bahram Soroush then went to the podium to give voice to the protest of millions of workers in Iran.  In his speech, which lasted for a few minutes, he said that since the delegation from Iran did not represent the workers in Iran, he was honoured to be bringing their voice to the conference.  He reiterated the call for the expulsion of the Islamic Republic regime from the ILO.  He said that Mr Ali Akbar Eivazi, who was being hosted by the ILO right there and then with full credentials and voting rights, as part of the so-called “workers’ delegation”, was the individual who, together with Mr Mahjoob, the Secretary of “Workers’ House”, had personally directed the missionary thugs in their barbaric raid last year on the office of Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate.  He went on to expose the Workers’ House and the Islamic Labour Councils as persecutors of workers.  In his short speech, Soroush successfully held up a small part of the regime’s bloody record for the delegates to see.  Our colleagues also handed out a leaflet, exposing a small fraction of the Iranian regime’s criminal record, its brutal violation of the workers’ basic rights and demanding its expulsion from the ILO, as well as from all international institutions.

 

In their two-day presence inside and outside the ILO conference, the delegates representing ILSC-WPI, composed of Bahram Soroush, Farshad Hosseini, Mahmoud Aghayari Moghadam, Behzad Sediqzade, Omid Aslani and Peyman Najafi Hafshjani, could thus echo the Iranian workers’ voice for the delegates from across the world to hear.  Our delegation distributed the letters sent by the above-mentioned workers in Iran objecting to the presence of the state-made delegation at the conference, as well as the protest letters and leaflets of our committee.  They were the true voice of protest of over a million workers in Iran grappling with the predicament of unpaid wages; the voice of over fifty Iran Khodro auto workers sacked for going on strike; the voice of Tehran bus workers whose January 2006 strike was savagely suppressed, with over a thousand being thrown into jail and 180 of them being fired after their release; the voice of Mansoor Ossanlou, the President of Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate, who has been in prison for nearly six months, with his health rapidly deteriorating as a result; the voice of workers all over Iran objecting to their unsafe working conditions that have turned work places into slaughter houses…

 

Now, in the wake of the protest letters and our unprecedented action, the ILO has requested the Islamic Republic itself to set up an independent enquiry to investigate the accusations, threats and assaults committed by the agents of its Ministry of Intelligence against union activists in Iran, and inform the ILO of the committee’s findings; while it is definitely not unknown to anyone in the least familiar with the situation in Iran that all such acts are the official policy of the state in Iran.  It is a shame for an organisation which apparently considers itself a defender of workers’ rights across the world to close its eyes on all such well-known realities and host such a regime’s delegation at its annual conference.

 

We, once again, declare that the Iranian delegation should not have been admitted to the conference.  In fact, those delegates deserve only to be put on trial as the representatives of a regime that for the past 28 years has done nothing but commit crimes against the people of Iran.  We, therefore, hereby once more register our vehement protest to the ILO for its patent opposition to the demands and the objections of millions of workers in Iran.

 

Moreover, we request all workers’ organisations around the world to join forces with the workers in Iran to strongly demand the expulsion from the ILO of the Islamic Republic and representatives of its Islamic Labour Councils and Workers’ House, to condemn all acts of persecution against labour activists in Iran, to demand the immediate and unconditional release of the jailed President of Tehran Bus Workers’ Syndicate, Mansoor Ossanlou, to demand that all labour activists be cleared of all trumped-up charges, and to support Iranian workers’ demands for such fundamental rights as the right to organisation, strike and collective bargaining.

 

 

Shahla Daneshfar

 

Co-ordinator,

International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran

 

June 19, 2006