Iraqi unions claim their voice
David Bacon
Sunday, June 12, 2005
Chronicle Sunday Insight
Baghdad -- For most Americans, the idea that Iraq has unions is a strange concept. We have become accustomed to seeing images of soldiers and bombs, while Iraq's working families have little visibility and are given little consideration in U.S. policy debates.
Yet Iraq, a country of 24 million people, has a long history of civic and labor activism dating back to the 1920s, when the British dug the first oil wells, and oil workers organized their first unions. They weren't legal then - - in fact, the British shot strikers in one of Iraq's first labor confrontations. They're not legal now, either.
Saddam Hussein, fearing a progressive movement to topple his dictatorship, banned unions for public workers in 1987. Iraq's public sector includes all of its largest industries -- oil, railroads, ports and big factories.
When the occupation began, however, U.S. authorities refused to repeal that law, despite promises of democracy. Instead, chief occupation administrator Paul Bremer issued Public Order 30 in September 2003 to privatize Iraq's state-owned industries. Thomas Foley, a fund-raiser for President Bush, drew up lists of factories, airlines, railroads, mines and other enterprises to be sold to private investors, including foreign corporations. Despite last January's elections, that program is still on the books.
Iraqi workers adamantly oppose privatization, since it would lead to massive job loss in a country already suffering 70 percent unemployment, according to economists at Baghdad University. To Iraqi unions, denying them legal status is a way to keep them weak in the face of the occupation's economic program.
Yet Iraqi unions -- despite lacking legal status and often being the targets of the occupation on the one hand and terrorists on the other -- have begun winning better conditions for workers. Hundreds of thousands of workers have joined, according to Iraqi labor organizers, making unions the largest institution in Iraqi civil society.
Oil workers recently held a large congress in Basra to voice their opposition to privatizing oil, or selling it to transnational corporations at discounted prices. Oil income, they said, is needed to rebuild their country. Their union calls for keeping public assets in public hands. It also calls for an end to the occupation, and the withdrawal of U.S., British and other foreign troops. Today, Iraq has several union federations. They don't always agree on everything, but on these two points, they see eye-to-eye.
Most Americans hope that the occupation will end too, replaced by a progressive government that will raise living standards and ensure a democratic and peaceful future. The war deprives working families in the United States of the money needed for education and public services, and it sends their children into harm's way. Yet instead of bringing prosperity and peace to Iraqis, the war has brought the opposite. Working families in both countries want the same thing.
That makes it important to seek out the voices of Iraq's unions, its women's, professional and student organizations, and hear what they have to say. Their voice is missing in the debate over the future of their country.
(1) Defiant: A worker at Iraq's state leather industry factory denounces the ban on unions. Many workers view organizing as their right after years under dictatorship. As Ghasib Hassan, general secretary of the Union for Aviation and Railway Workers and member of the executive committee of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, explained: "The IFTU was established soon after the fall of Saddam Hussein by trade unionists who had been in exile or prison, who are very well known because of their struggle against the former regime. They paid heavily and suffered terribly. ... We began going out to factories. We formed committees in workplaces, and people nominated and elected their representatives freely. We are building a trade union movement which is independent, democratic and pluralist. Workers should be freee to join the union of their own choice. We campaign for social, economic and political advances in the interest of working people. We want a federal, prosperous and democratic Iraq. Women should take their place in society, government and trade unions. Their wages should be equal to those of men. We've built 12 national unions, and women are leaders of some."