Iraqi strikes defeat severe wage cuts

Iraqi workers scored an important victory last month. Days of strikes and demonstrations, including electrical workers and oil workers in Baghdad, and cement workers in Sulaimaniya, got the Iraqi government to reverse its order to cut wages by up to 30% and eliminate many benefits. It agreed to pay retroactively the workers' wages that had already been cut. It also agreed to negotiate with workers' representatives over other issues such as work safety.

Even more significant is the agreement to consider passing a new labor law that would respect labor rights in conformity with International Labor Organization standards. This would be subject to Parliamentary debate. Such a law would of course be a great advance over the current situation, in which Saddam Hussein's 1987 anti-union laws are still in effect.

Plans have also been made to hold a large International Labor Conference in Iraq next Feb. 13-14, in Erbil. According to the organizers: "Iraq's labor movement is a force for unifying our nationÉWorkers represent the majority of Iraqis who do not have any interest in the ongoing terrorist violence. When sectarian gangs have attempted to transfer their conflicts into the ranks of workers, they have been rejected.

"Iraq's labor unions are the glue that binds Iraqi people in the north, center and south. In some areas the glue is strong, but in other areas of the country unions are isolated. Our goal with this conference is to strengthen the ties between all worker organizations and focus on our common priorities. Those who feel isolated need to know that they have support from the international labor movement."

The current upsurge among Iraq's workers should be given as much support as possible. What is happening now raises the question of what kind of society Iraq will become in a profound way. Squabbles over oil revenue could point to an Iraq in which oil would be used as in Iran and Saudi Arabia to fund reactionaries and support the lifestyle of corrupt elites. But the workers' movement has other precedents in Iraq' 1958 Revolution and the mass uprising of 1991. It could change that whole equation and place human power above the power of capital and its reactionary train of fundamentalisms and militarism.

For more information and to contribute financial support to the February conference of Iraqi unions, see U.S. Labor Against the War: http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/. They are hoping to raise $150,000.

--Gerry Emmett

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