UNISON NEWS
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(6/1/05) Trade unionists were today mourning the death of a leading member of Iraq’s fledgling union movement, who has been assassinated by remnants of Saddam Hussein’s secret police.
Hadi Salih, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), was brutally tortured in his family home in Baghdad, before being shot.
UNISON’s general secretary Dave Prentis was among the UK trade union leaders who immediately sent their commiserations to Hadi Salih’s family and colleagues. UNISON has been active in recent months in supporting the federation in its attempts to build an independent trade union movement in post-Saddam Iraq.
A statement by the IFTU said: “Iraqi working people have now lost a brave trade union leader, who dedicated three decades of his life to fighting against Saddam’s dictatorship.
“He fought for a democratic, peaceful and federal Iraq, which would unite all Iraqis regardless of their background, ethnicity or religion. He championed workers’ rights to organise and strike to achieve decent jobs, pay and working conditions.”
The federation denounced a “cowardly act”, which it said followed a well orchestrated programme of intimidation against workers and trade unionists waged by Saddam loyalists.
And it called on the international labour movement “to demand that Iraq’s interim government provide adequate protection for workers and their legitimate trade union representatives as they carry out their jobs".
Hadi Salih, who was 56 and a former printing worker, had been a key activist in the clandestine Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement, which was established in 1980 to keep alive an independent labour movement during the Saddam dictatorship.
Persecution by the regime for his trade union activities forced him into exile. He returned to his homeland after the fall of Saddam and immediately set about the task of re-building independent trade unions in Iraq. He was a founder member of the IFTU, in May 2003.
“We in UNISON salute the bravery and political determination of Hadi Salih, for his forthright opposition to the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein, his long term commitment to labour activism, his efforts to rebuild the trade union movement in Iraq and his opposition to the occupation of his country,” said Prentis.
“Hadi believed in peaceful solutions and condemned all those who used violence and terror to achieve their objectives. That he should be brutally murdered by assassins who broke into his home reinforces the urgency of his message.”
Only last month Hadi Salih had attended the ICFTU world congress, in Japan, where he met a number of British trade unionists, including TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.
Condemning the murder, Barber said: "Hadi’s commitment to rebuilding the trade union movement as part of a democratic Iraq has cost him and his family dear.
“Sadly, Iraq has now joined the list of countries where trade unionists live under the almost daily threat of violence and death, and Iraqi working people have lost someone who worked tirelessly on their behalf."
Posted at January 6, 2005 01:05 PM