Iraqi labour movement makes global debut with tough task ahead

[Barrett808]

MIYAZAKI, Japan (AFP) - Iraqi labour unions making their global debut at a conference in Japan are seeking tips on their tough task -- how to make workers aware of rights suppressed for years by Saddam Hussein.

Five trade union leaders from Iraq (news - web sites) attended the 18th World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which began on Sunday in the southwestern resort city of Miyazaki.

It was the first-ever appearance of Iraqi organised labour at a congress of ICFTU, which meets every four years. Saddam only allowed a government-run union and persecuted the underground labour movement.

Since the collapse of the regime, at least 10 independent trade unions have been set up in Iraq.

"Now, we are working very hard to establish a democratic trade union to bring together all Iraqis no matter what their background, ethnicity and religions are," said Hadi Salih, international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), based in Baghdad.

(more)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20041206/wl_mideast_afp/japan_unions_iraq

[neweurope]

1. Waste of time.

They'll shoot down unionists in Fallujah.

[Barrett808]

2. I recall back in the Bremer days trade unionists being rounded up...

...and carted off to prison by US forces. Couldn't have labor organizing and mucking up AEI's free-trade utopia.

[Tempest]

3. Bremer banned unions in Iraq

The Union of the Unemployed quickly emerged as an effective campaigning force and the Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions resurfaced. In response, the US proconsul, Paul Bremer, resurrected
the 1984 Saddam law banning all strikes in the public sector and ordered the arrest of the union's leaders.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1253111,00.html

[RuleofLaw]

4. My thought exactly

I remember reading stories about how the labor movement was being treated under Bremer. And here is the story:


"But the CPA, while striking down almost all of Hussein’s other laws, has kept the ban on unions, keeping wages low and unemployment high (at about 70 percent). They are privatizing the state enterprises that employed most of the workers. As of December 2003, 138 of the 600 state-owned businesses were being offered for sale.

On Sept. 19, 2003, the CPA published Order No. 37, which suspends income and property taxes for a year and limits future taxes to 15 percent. Later that day, they issued Order No. 39, permitting 100 percent foreign ownership of businesses (except oil) and allowing repatriation of profits. Outright ownership of, access to, and profits from Iraqi oil fields is still under dispute – although it is likely that U.S. interests will prevail.

The CPA has set an emergency pay scale for Iraqi workers’ wages, which for most is $60 a month. This is the same wage scale that workers had under the Hussein regime. Benefits under Hussein included frequent bonuses, profit sharing, medical coverage, and food subsidies. There is no overtime pay under the CPA, no benefits, and an increase in the exchange rate has made imports and essential items very expensive. Workers have had a drastic cut in income since April 2003 as a result of CPA decisions."

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/17.html

[Monkie]

5. ICFTU=cia front set up to counter those nasty "commie" unions

http://www.laboreducator.org/darkpast3.htm

"In September 1945, delegates from the labor federations of 56 counties met in Paris to form the World Federation of Trade Unions. Among its affiliates were the CIO, the United Mine Workers, the U.S. railroad unions, the British Trade Union Congress and most of the functioning unions in Europe, Asia and Africa.

The one glaring exception was the American Federation of Labor. Meany, refusing to join the WFTU, said its affiliates lacked “the basic freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion.” The WFTU, he said, was “primarily part of a struggle to secure world political power for the Communists in the postwar world.”

The AFL began a strong campaign to undermine the WFTU and establish a rival world labor federation under its influence, if not direct control"