Iran's Islamic Councils and “Workers' House” out of ILO!

• January 2006: around 1,000 bus workers of Tehran and Suburbs bus company were arrested during their strike. Some were tortured. Many were sacked. Even the partners and children of some of the workers were not spared.
• Mansoor Ossanlou, president of the bus workers' union, is still in prison, after nearly six months, for trying to build a union.
• Over 50 workers of Iran Khodro car-manufacturing company were sacked for going on strike on 3 March 2006.
• Seven labour activists detained and put on trial for organising a May Day rally in 2004 in the city of Saqez have again been summoned to court. Also the May Day activists this year in the city of Sanandaj have been constantly threatened, detained and even kidnapped by the security forces.
• Over one million workers have been without pay from several months to 2 years due to so called “wage arrears” (non-payment of wages). For example, textile workers in the city of Kashan, who have been without pay for 14 months, several textile companies in Ghazvin and hundreds of other factories around the country. The minumum wage - if paid at all and on time - is around 1/3 of the official poverty line.
• The protest of workers at Khatoon Abad copper mine over jobs around three years ago was crushed. The security forces fired at the workers, killing four.
• September 2005: 11 miners at Bab Nizoo mine perished because the management had tried to save money by turning off the ventilators. The authorities have not accepted any responsiblity towards the families of the deceased.
• The list is endless...

Any protest against these atrocities is answerd with bullets, prison, torture and firing. The Iranian government's Islamic Labour Councils and “Workers' House”, who attend the ILO conference as “workers' representatives”, are ideological and state-sponsored organistions which work with the government in its attacks on workers. One example was the attack on the office of the bus workers' union on 9 May 2005, when leading members of the Islamic Councils and Workers' House tried to cut Mr Ossanlou's tongue. Also during the crushing of the bus workers' strike this year, these organisations worked hand in hand with the security forces in identifying strike activists.

Mr Ali Akbar Eivazi, who is an invited delegate to this conference, with full credentials and voting rights, as part of the so-called “workers' delegation” from Iran, led the attack on the bus workers' union on 9 May 2005 together with the head of Workers' House, Mr Mahjoob. He was personally involved in the attack on Mr Ossanlou by grabbing Ossanlou’s neck while another Islamic Council member, Hasan Sadeghi (incidentally, a delegate at last year's ILO conference!) attempted to cut Mr Ossanlou's tongue, inflicting serious injuries on him.

Iran's Workers' House and Islamic Labour Councils are not Iranian workers' representatives, but their persecutors. Workers from a number of sectors in Iran, namely, the Syndicate of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Iran Khodro auto workers, and a group of workers from East Tehran have written to the ILO this year in protest at the presence of members of Islamic Councils and Workers' House at this conference. Instead of being invited to ILO conferences, such people should stand trial for 27 years of crime against workers.

We request all workers' delegates and trade unions to press for the expulsion of the representatives of Iran's Islamic Councils and Workers' House from the ILO, in support of the fundamental rights of workers in Iran - the right to organise, the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining.

International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran
12 June 2006