UNISON News: 18/8/05 - The trade union movement in Iraq is growing by the day, despite the threats to the lives of union activists – and with the help of UNISON.
UNISON staff have just returned from Jordan and the first session in a one-year programme of training for Iraqi unionists, in the day-to-day skills required of union reps.
“It was brilliant, a real success,” said international officer Nick Crook. “The dedication of these people is incredible. Actually, it’s quite humbling.”
The risks for anyone trying to organise, or join a union in post-Saddam Iraq are very real. In January, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) was brutally tortured in his family home in Baghdad, before being shot.
Since then there have been attacks on numerous trade union members, including a number of train drivers.
“Local reps are in danger from both sides of the divide,” said Crook. “From the Saddam security forces, because unionists are seen as part of the new democratic Iraq that they are trying to disrupt. And from the religious fundamentalists, who see them as being anti-Islamic.
“But they even get hassle from the occupying forces,” he added, “because the Americans don’t like trade unionists either.”
Because of the threat, the UNISON course was held in Amman, which was safer both for the UNISON officers and the 20 Iraqi unionists on the course – 10 from the IFTU and 10 from the Iraqi Teachers Union.
Crook and two members of UNISON’s learning and organising services, Louise Chinnery and Pam Johnson, based the course on the union’s own lay tutor scheme, geared towards training UNISON members to themselves use education methods to run branch-based training and organising.
“Essentially, it’s a series of courses to train the trainers,” said Crook. “In this case we were helping the Iraqis develop their own training in such things as recruitment, workplace and negotiation skills.
“One problem they have is that they can’t organise public meetings, because they pose a security threat. So we are also training them how to conduct small-scale workplace meetings and one-on-ones - which are actually good ways to go in and talk to people.”
Unions are already starting to flex their muscles in their country, according to Crook. Railway, hotel and airport workers have taken industrial action in protest at the physical threats to members, as well as more traditional workplace concerns. “It has shown that they are capable of organising,” he said.
Posted at August 20, 2005 10:13 AM