Dear USLAW comrades,
IFTU sends our warmest greetings to the delegates and all the labour union members represented at the important USLAW Leadership Assembly.
IFTU salutes USLAW’s internationalist position of solidarity with the working people of Iraq. We are grateful for USLAW’s solidarity towards the IFTU both financially and politically and we appreciate the USLAW’s important work in communicating to the US and international labour movement extensive IFTU reports on USLAW’s website.
As you all know the Iraqi people are now struggling under the most difficult and dangerous conditions and parts of Iraq are in flames. Trade unionists are now under real attack. A year ago our offices were raided and shut down by the US military. Today, in the month of October alone, enemies of the working class calling themselves freedom fighters have murdered 7 IFTU members.
The IFTU reiterates our determination to continue our fight for:
1. the removal of foreign troops from Iraq as a part of the UN political process outlined in UNSCR 1546;
2. the building of Iraqi democracy;
3. a halt to the disastrous policies of privatisation;
4. the establishment of some form of social welfare provision for the needy; unemployed, disabled, children and elderly people;
5. the defence of women’s rights;
6. a complete scrapping of the 1987 fascist-style anti-union laws of Saddam Hussein;
7. the implementation of ILO key core conventions including the right for workers to join a trade union of their choice, to take strike action, to have a safe working environment;
8. and a complete prohibition of forced labour and child labour.
Until these demands are achieved, IFTU continues to call for an immediate freeze (moratorium) on the 1987 Labour Laws until the forthcoming elections and the establishment of a Constitutional Assembly, which must implement the rights of Iraqi workers (as outlined in ILO Conventions) into the Constitution of a new and democratic Iraq – as it is now stated in Article 13 of the transitional constitution governing Iraq during this period until democratic elections for a national Assembly in January 2006.
We wish you all well and success in your deliberations; we hope you will continue to show the solidarity with the IFTU that you have always shown. We need your international solidarity now more than ever.
Abdullah Muhsin,
Foreign Representative,
Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU)