Iran workers' demands

Tehran and Municipality Bus Workers Syndicate, Haft Tapeh Sugar Refinery Workers Syndicate, Free Assembly of Iranian Workers, Kermanshah Electrical and Metal Workers Guild present our demands:

Thirty-one years have passed since the February 1979 revolution. At that time millions of Iranian people, full of hope for a better life, took to the streets in order to break the yoke of despotism and repression. A nationwide strike led by workers at the National Oil Company, the vanguard of the Iranian working class, shut down oil pipelines, ultimately tearing the despotic regime asunder. Masses of people chanted, "Our oil workers! Our resolute leader!" Power fell to the people….

Born of democratic struggle, strikes, protest...the working class has fought for its right to survive. Many of us now sit in jail for attempting to organize the working class and build a better life.

But these jail cells do not mark the end of the road....We have at our back the historical experience of the united and grand strike of the oil workers during the February revolution....We inspire the best and most humanistic aspirations of the 1979 revolution. Today, after thirty-one years, we present our minimal demands and call for immediate and unconditional realization of all of them:

1. Unconditional recognition of independent workers' organizations, the right to strike, to organize protests, the freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom to associate with any political party.

2. An immediate stop to all executions, and the immediate and unconditional release of labor and other political activists from jail.

3. Immediate increase of the minimum wage based on workers' input through their representatives in general workers assemblies.

4. End to the Subsidies Rationalization Plan: delayed wages of workers should be immediately paid....

5. Job security for workers and all wage earners, the end to all temporary contracts and blank signatures, removal of all government-run organizations in the workplace, institution of new labor laws through direct participation of the workers in their general worker assemblies.

6. Halt to all firings under any circumstances. Anyone expelled, or at employment age, must benefit from social security in line with human dignity.

7. End of all discriminatory laws against women and insuring full and unconditional equality of women and men in all aspects of social, economic, political, cultural, and family affairs.

8. Insuring all the retired with a life of welfare, devoid of economic anxieties; putting an end to all discriminatory payment practices, and allowing everyone to benefit from social and medical services.

9. All children, irrespective of their parents' economic and social status, gender, nationality, race, and religion must be granted free and equal educational, welfare, and healthcare benefits.

10. May 1 must be declared a national holiday and included in the official calendar; all legal restrictions on its celebration must be removed.

Read the full statement at http://newsandletters.org/Announce/IranWorkers2010.asp

Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search l RSS

Subscribe to News & Letters

Published by News and Letters Committees