First I would like to offer a brief account of the state of the oil sector in Iraq. Then move on to provide a brief history of the Iraqi labour movement and of the emergence of the IFTU before I go on to discuss the current situation in Iraq and the challenges the IFTU faces.
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU): Outline History and Future Tasks
A paper by Abdullah Muhsin, United Kingdom based Representative of the IFTU.
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Introduction
First I would like to offer a brief account of the sate of the oil sector in Iraq. Then move on to provide a brief history of the Iraqi labour movement and of the emergence of the IFTU before I go on to discuss the current situation in Iraq and the challenges the IFTU faces.
Current state of the Oil sector In Iraq
The ousting of the Saddam dictatorship opened a long suppressed aspiration for the democratisation of state and society especially for those who embrace Iraq’s social, political and ethnic and national diversity, despite the complex and extremely difficult situation caused by the occupation.
Iraq has huge oil wealth and this will continue to be a key contributor in the future development of Iraq’s economic and human resources. The safeguarding of this oil wealth for the Iraqi people must be the prime objective of the new Iraqi interim government and any future democratically elected transitional government in early 2005.
Oil will remain the main backbone of the Iraqi economy in the near future; the way in which oil will be exploited and distributed will certainly determine the form and shape of the future social and political regime in Iraq.
Three scenarios are facing the oil industry in Iraq:
1. The privatisation of Iraq’s oil industry (the sell off oil wells and infrastructures to multinational companies).
2. Encouraging foreign international companies to invest in the development of Iraq’s oil industry using a new form of contracts that are different from those applied under the previous regime.
3. The oil industry remains under the control of the public sector, similar to other oil producing countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf States.
To provide an accurate account of the state of the oil sector in Iraq, one must look at the period of sanctions, the impact of the recent war and thereafter the occupation of the country.
Sanctions 1990-2003
The unjust UN sanctions starved the oil industry in Iraq. It was difficult for Iraq’s oil sector to obtain new machinery, spare parts or new advanced technologies. During the first half of the 1990-decade, the Iraqi Oil Ministry, in accordance with the UN “oil for food programme” experienced extreme difficulties in importing much needed spare parts for the industry heavy engineering machinery, tools and advanced technologies.
Furthermore, the implementation process of signed and agreed contracts was slow on both sides, the UN and the former dictatorial regime of Saddam, due to bureaucratic inefficiency and slow hierarchical procedures on both sides --the UN and former regime.
Many contracts were left open without precise completion date. But the recent war of March 2003 and thereafter the lack of security that prevail meant that many previously agreed contracts had to be postponed. But some goods had arrived at the end of last year (2003)
In addition to the above the war, the breakdown of social order that took place during the immediate aftermath of the war and the current lack of security have all intensified the difficulties the oil sector in Iraq. This is because much of the heavy oil machinery was stolen and many others were smuggled outside Iraq. Others were destroyed and damaged deliberately due to acts of sabotages or s a direct result of bombing. According to the current Oil Ministry goods that were stolen, damaged or smuggled from the oil sector are very expensive and the ministry lack funds— that till the second half of 2004. This has meant that the ministry was unable to buy new machinery and technology.
The former occupation authority (CPA) did not provide the Iraqi Oil Ministry with sufficient funds for it to invest in the development of the oil industry; but rather was given only enough money to run the ministry and pay wages and other bureaucratic structural cost.
Due to continuous pressure from the Oil Ministry, the occupation authority, and just before it was dissolved by UN Security Council resolution 1546, provided additional money to be spent on the development of the industry, digging new oil wells and improving the structure of others.
The Oil Ministry was allocated $2.1 Billion from the US 18.4 Billion that had been approved by US Congress for the reconstruction of Iraq. The $ 2.1 Billion was intended for the rebuilding of the outdated oil industry and to import oil components, which Iraq lacked as a result of the war and the sanctions. Please note that the decision on the expenditure of the $2.1 Billion remained in the hands of the CPA, and was made by the occupation authority and not the ministry.
Key oil industry plants such as the oil refineries were subjected to armed attacks, looting and sabotage soon after the war. Al Dora refinery and other major plants and key installations in Baghdad and Basra, and the Bejy oil refineries, were looted and severely damaged.
Major Southern Oil plants, such as Al Rumaila and Al Zubair were looted, vandalised and subjected to severe damage. The oil pipe line that transports oil from the south of the country to the north was attacked and damaged by smugglers and saboteurs.
Currently oil production stands at 2.8 million barrels a day. The Oil Ministry is aiming at increasing this level to 4 million barrels a day in four years. To achieve the level of production to 4 million barrel depends on the Ministry's ability to obtain new spare parts, using new structures to restore oil production levels and modernizing the transportation structures of oil (by means of road, sea and overland pipe lines).
The country has huge oil reserves that currently stand as the second in the world. It is possible that Iraq would have the biggest oil reserves in the world.
Oil revenues stand at 97% of Iraq national income in hard currency. Hence Iraq’s economy currently depends on oil and for this deserves a special attention from the current interim government, the future elected government in 2005 and key agencies of the state.
It has been proposed recently to establish an Oil and Gas Commission that would be responsible for overseeing, protecting and modernizing oil production and increasing investment. There is also a plan to establish a National Oil Commission and National Oil Company with many different specializing companies dealing with the production of oil components, including the production of gas.
The IFTU was informed by reliable sources at the Oil Ministry that the US and other countries that want to buy Iraqi oil will be able to buy it on open market at competitive prices. The sources said, “Nobody shall get a special rate”
A Brief History of Iraq’s Labour Movement
The labour movement in Iraq has a long history. Despite the impression that one gets from TV coverage, Iraq actually has long traditions of industrialisation and secularism and these have provided trade unions with fertile ground in which to grow. Oil production, transport, public utilities have all been centres of union organising since the 1940s. And a secular education system was developed in the 1940s. Though this system was ‘Ba'athised’ by Saddam it was not abolished.
The great crossroads of recent Iraqi history came in 1958. In 1932 Iraq had gained a nominal independence but the UK remained dominant behind the scenes. In 1958 the British-installed Hashemite monarchy was overthrown in a popular and nationalist Revolution that installed the Free Officers leader, Abdul-Karim Qassem in power. After the 1958 revolution Iraqi Communists, and Arab and Kurdish nationalists played a major role in the development of the Iraqi General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU). The GFTU enjoyed a measure of autonomy and power and organised 275,000 workers in 1959. In 1959 the unions mobilised half a million people for its May Day demonstration from a population of only 6.5 million.
1963 The Ba'ath Seize Power
However, in 1963 the Ba’ath party overthrew the Qassim government in a bloody coup and assumed control of Iraq. Opposition was repressed. Thousands of the independent leaders and activists of the GFTU were executed or imprisoned.
In the 1970s the Ba’ath Party, after seizing power once again through a palace coup in 1968, took the economy into state control. This was not for the benefit of the workers but a means to enable the ruling party and Saddam Hussein to become the sole source of power in Iraq.
1979: Saddam Seizes Power
In 1979 Saddam, already a vice-President became President after a bloody internal coup in the Ba’ath party. His regime immediately arrested many leaders of the official GFTU, which he turned into a yellow union, appointing his own stooges.
Independent trade unions leaders were executed or imprisoned in a systematic campaign of repression waged by the regime against democratic focres in the late 1970s. The IFTU remembers our comrades Badran Risan (Tobacco workers), Abdul Razzak Ahmed (mechanic), Fa'iq Mustafa Abdul Karim (mechanic), Abdul Khaliq Tahir (Dock workers union), Radhi Atiyya (printworker), NatiqAl-Shakily (electrician) and Nasr-allah Al-Nabawi (post office worker). And we recall the trade union leader, Hindal Jader Al-Sawadi, from Basra’s oil industry. He disappeared in 1979, and in 1983 a London-based human rights organisation (CARDRI) reported that he had been killed.
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In short, the GFTU became a tool of control for Saddam’s totalitarian state. It spied on workers and its offices became centres of interrogation and torture. The very term ‘trade union’ became associated with oppression for many Iraqis. A leading member of Saddam’s 'yellow unions' was a close collaborator of Chemical Ali, the monster who gassed the Kurds at Halabja, as well as the Marsh Arabs, Iranian soldiers and many thousands of Iraqi democrats including communists.
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On 11 March 1987, Saddam’s regime introduced a new Labour Code, which redefined public sector workers as “employees” and removed their right to form or join trade unions. He abolished the eight-hour day and handed over workers pension fund to the treasury without compensation. The relatively progressive Labour Law passed in 1970 was also abolished.
Saddam actually announced these measures during a televised meeting with the GFTU leadership and members of the "Central Workers Office" of the Ba’ath party. He said:
"From now on, the title 'worker' is abolished and all workers shall become official employees by the State. As everybody is now a government employee, there is no more need for trade unions. Workers in the private sector will have a special labour law decreed for them".
The GFTU applauded all these measures. And, when Saddam launched his war against Iran from 1980 to 1988 and his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 the GFTU acted as Saddam’s recruiting sergeants.
The Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUN)
As a reaction to this political repression and to the violation of workers rights to form or join real trade unions, an illegal underground trade union movement emerged. Formed inside Iraq in 1980, the Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM) existed throughout the 24 years of rule of Saddam’s Ba’ath party. The WDTUM was composed of trade unionists, intellectuals, liberals and communists, and women, youth and students advocates.
Abroad the WDTUM played a significant role in exposing Saddam’s atrocities and genocide against Iraqis. Inside Iraq its members worked to collect information - at great risk- about summary executions, torture and imprisonment and send them to trade union centres around the world.
In Britain, in 1982, as a result of information passed on by the WDTUM to Tobacco Workers Union leader Dougie Grieve, the TUC conference passed a motion condemning the atrocities against workers in Iraq. The WDTUM helped to organize a strike of four thousand tobacco workers in Iraqi Kurdistan (Sulaimaniyah) in open defiance of the regime. Saddam’s security apparatus crushed the strike and four workers were executed.
The Formation of the IFTU on 16 May 2003
The clandestine trade union movement, the WDTUM, organized an open meeting on 16 May 2003, after the collapse of Saddam's regime, attended by 350 Iraqi trade unionists (liberals, communists, and nationalists, including Arabs, Kurds and other national minorities). It was at this meeting that the IFTU was formed. Some of these founding organisers had been in exile. Some had been imprisoned. Some had been working underground. They came together on 16 May to form the backbone of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).
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IFTU Achievements
The IFTU has achieved some great things against the odds. In just over a year, 12 national unions in key sectors of the Iraq’s economy have been established. The IFTU now includes the following unions: The Oil and Gas Union, the Railway Union, The Transport and Communication Union, the Mechanics, Printing and Metal Union. The Textile and Leather products Union, the Construction and Wood Workers' Union, the Electricians' Union, the Service Industry Union and the Agriculture and Food Staff Workers' Union.
These unions organise in Baghdad and across Iraq’s 15 provinces such as Basra, Kirkuk, Mosul, Kurbala, al Najif, Babel and Mesan.
I am pleased to report that during June 2004 six of the IFTU’s constituent unions held their first open and free workers’ conferences in Baghdad and each had elected a leading committee of 15 members. These unions are: The Service Union, the Agriculture and Food Staff Workers Union and Transport and Communication Union, the Mechanic, Printing and Metal Workers Union, the Construction and Wood Workers Union and the Leather Products and Textile Workers Union.
The IFTU has welcomed a series of fact-finding missions from the international trade union movement. The reports of these missions can be consulted at the IFTU website [http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/].
The ICFTU visited Iraq on a fact-finding mission in February of 2004. The mission was led by P Kamalam, Asia officer of the ICFTU, and consisted of representatives of the TUC, the AFL-CIO, the UGTT of Tunisia (with the support of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions ICATU), and two global union confederations the ITF (transport) and the EI (education).
The TUC representative, Owen Tudor (Head of the TUC European Union and International Relations Department) wrote a report on Iraq and the IFTU that can be read at http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-7859-f0.cfm.
Current Work of the IFTU
Despite the terrible security situation IFTU Unions affiliates are organizing on the industrial and legislative fronts. We have organised strikes, marches and entering into negotiation with both public and private enterprises in defence of workers rights to just wages and better working conditions. And we are campaigning for a labour code that adheres to the ILO conventions.
In Baghdad, the Mechanic, Printing and Metal Union organized industrial action in a bicycle factory near Baghdad. The president of the union committee Najim Al Daham called for a 24-hour strike and won pay increases from 17,000 to 60,000 Iraqi Dinars. The IFTU was able to bring solidarity delegations from seven Baghdad work places representing several unions, to demonstrate outside the main gate of the bicycle factory in support of the strikers’ demands.
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Let me talk briefly about the IFTU’s work with particular groups of workers.
Metalworkers
The Metalworkers, Mechanics & Printers’ Union has elected a new 15 member Baghdad Regional Committee and is planning its first national conference.
Some of its members are still employed in the public sector, for example the workers at the ‘Al Nassr’ (Victory) mouldings and car parts manufacturing plant. This factory was nationalised as part of Saddam Hussein’s militarisation of Iraqi industry. The Ministry of Industry now controls it and the wages are paid by the state. The IFTU has fought for and won a minimum wage of 150,000 Iraqi Dinars (ID) per month. We entered into negotiations with the Ministry at this and at other plants that they control, such as the paint manufacturing plant, where collective bargaining is now recognised.
Railway Workers
There have been excellent developments in the last year. The Railworkers’ Union has been created with an office at the Baghdad Central Railway Station. But we still have a lot of work to do. The Iraqi railway industry is still only partially operational. Railworkers have had to work in conditions of extreme danger (including armed attacks on train drivers) just to keep traffic moving. Passenger traffic was suspended 3 months ago because passengers were being robbed on trains.
The IFTU has established a national minimum wage rate across IRR (Railways of the Iraqi Republic) from Mosul in the north to Basra in the South and forced it up from ID 75,000 to ID 125,000 per month due to the inflationary pressures in the past year. We have won the same rate of pay for men and women. Women comprise between 10-15% of the workforce in IRR working with computers and office administration as well as cleaners and also some engineers. Traditionally train drivers of passenger and goods trains received a bonus based on the mileage over which they worked and we have achieved a compensatory package paid to them due to the suspension of so much of the traffic.
Finally, we are very proud to have achieved a scheme in Baghdad and elsewhere for the IRR to provide safe transport from residential areas to their place of work for railworkers. This last was very difficult to achieve but absolutely crucial because of the terrible security situation in Iraq. We had to threaten strike action in order to force the company to concede.
Dockers
What steps is the IFTU taking to organise dockers? Historically railway and dockworkers were crucial in building the trade unions in Iraq. Due to the fascist labour laws introduced by Saddam Hussein in 1987 we had to really rebuild the organisation of dockworkers. The former Port Director of Umm Qasr installed by the US firm Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) was a Ba’athist who was opposed to trade unions. He has now been removed. The delegation from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which visited the port in February 2004, was greeted by a demonstration of dockworkers demanding union recognition.
Soon after the ICFTU visit the IFTU met with the new Port Director who was appointed by the Ministry of Transport, who says he is not opposed to trade unions. However, we still do not have recognition. Nevertheless, on the docks there are Workers’ Committees sets up in defiance of the 1987 labour law. They operate openly and use the newsletter of the Basra Region of the IFTU. There are 6 such docks committees in the Iraqi ports. The minimum wage for dockworkers is currently only ID 75,000 rising to ID 100,000 after a year’s employment.
Firefighters
The Civil Defence Corps fire fighters are still controlled by the Ministry of the Interior and are not allowed to join a recognised trade union. However, in the oil industry fire fighters have formed independent workers’ committees within the Oil & Gas Workers’ Union. Of course the recent solidarity visit to Basra by Brian Joyce of the UK Fire Brigades Union was very important and raised the morale of the Iraqi fire fighters. What is necessary now is to separate the civil defence fire fighters from the police force. Oil refinery fire fighters get much better paid (10-15% more) than the civil defence fire fighters.
Other Unions in Iraq since the fall of Saddam
Let me now say a few words about the other unions in post-Saddam Iraq.
Iraqi Kurdistan
What is the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan? Iraqi Kurdistan is a region in northern Iraq, which enjoyed a large degree of autonomy, outside the control of Saddam's regime, after the popular uprising, which had swept the region and most of Iraq in March 1991 the Gulf War. The situation there has helped civil society to flourish and the growth of trade unions has been a major part of that.
The removal of the Ba’ath regime in April 2003 opened up the possibility of fulfilling the aspirations of the region's population for a federal structure in which they have a unified, ethnically defined region of their own enjoying significant autonomy, based on national federalism. The Kurdish national question if mismanaged could fatally undermine the political transition and lead to renewed violent struggle. But the Interim Constitution (Transitional Administrative Law, TAL) signed on 8 March 2004 recognized a single autonomous region effectively equivalent to the three governrates the Kurds have governed in semi-independence since 1991.
There are two trade union federations in Iraqi Kurdistan. They are both independent although each is closely linked to one of the two major Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). These Unions are democratic and independent.
These two federations are merging, and the IFTU is helping in this necessary process.
Unions in Iraqi Kurdistan are working alongside patriotic political forces in Iraqi Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq for the creation of federalism within a unified democratic Iraq. They are opposed to and refuse to have any links with either the GFTU or the ‘Union of Unemployed’.
Union federations in Kurdistan have a good and close relationship with the IFTU, but they do not wish to merge with the IFTU, a point the IFTU understands and supports. The Iraqi Kurdistan unions are, however, actively seeking an intimate relationship with the IFTU. We share the goal of a federal, democratic and fully sovereign Iraq.
The GFTU
Saddam’s stooge ‘union’, the GFTU still exists on paper. Former GFTU leaders who collaborated with Chemical Ali and Saddam’s regime are receiving some help from Arab and foreign elements, and are attempting to create fake unions around Islamic political groups. Others claim that the GFTU is reforming itself from within and will cleanse itself of the Ba’athists (Saddam’s supporters). This pretence will not work. The GFTU has not broken from the one party ideology. It has not renounced its authoritarian methods. It remains a tool for the anti-democratic political plans of others. It commands no support among Iraqi working people.
However, the ICATU internal constitution allows only one trade union centre per country to join its confederation. Because the GFTU has been affiliated to the ICATU for many years this has complicated matters.
The ICATU has proposed that the IFTU and GFTU should merge. This is a non-starter. The IFTU refuses to join with those who collaborated with Saddam’s bloody regime and oppressed workers for so long. The IFTU supports a pluralist trade union movement but it must be democratic and genuinely pro-worker. Hence we are firmly opposed to a merger with the GFTU. And we are fiercely opposed to the unilateral enforcement of a merger by law, which would be in breach of ILO conventions.
The Union of Unemployed in Iraq
The Union of Unemployed in Iraq - which now calls itself as the Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions. Like many other movements formed in Baghdad in the wake of Saddam’s demise it gained some international notoriety for organising protests outside Bremer’s offices. But the UUI is really a front organisation of the small Workers Communist Party of Iraq. It commands very little support among Iraqi working people. In fact the union had disappeared from the political and industrial scene of Iraqi Kurdistan because of its sectarianism. It is possible this experience will be repeated in the rest of Iraq. Though the UUI has capitalized on the strong anti-occupation feeling and on the despair of the high numbers of unemployed, it possesses few industrial credentials and is viewed with disdain by the Iraqi labour movement.
Our unions need to be places where all workers who support a democratic and secular, federalist Iraq can organise. That is as far as our Unions can go in political purity. The ‘Workers Communists’ Party have a far more detailed programme. This is their right but it is not a recipe for building a mass movement. Unions cannot be run as if they were political parties. Nevertheless, UUI cannot be summarily dismissed.
The Current Tasks of the IFTU
The IFTU faces three challenges today: to win a Labour Code we can work with, to build up the union and affiliate it to the international federations, and to achieve not just the end of the occupation but a sovereign and democratic Iraq.
Achieving a Labour Code
The Iraqi Transitional Administrative Law passed in 8 March 2004, despite its drawbacks, offers on paper a balanced system of governance, giving clear separation between the three state institutions, and it guarantees (in Article 13) the right to form and join a union and the right to strike. It also guarantees the role of women with the leadership of the state and its institutions, and recognizes Iraq as a federal state. However, there is no mention of social welfare provision.
The ILO declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work is regarded by the IFTU as a statement of fundamental human rights and freedoms, universally applicable.
In line with this, the IFTU is in consultation with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Iraqi Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs and representatives of Iraqi businesses, pushing hard for a Labour Law that will guarantee workers basic rights to employment, health & safety and legal compensation for injury at work. We are pressing hardest for the incorporation in the new labour Law of these ILO principles:
*Freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining (conventions 87 and 98)
*Elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour (conventions 29 and 105)
*Effective abolition of child labour (conventions 138 and 182)
*Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
At the 2004 ILO 92 Conference, held in Geneva in June, the IFTU met with two of the ILO governing body, the Arab coordinator and the ILO workers group secretary. Both assured us that a labour code is at final stage of completion. The proposed code (with the ILO endorsement) should be put for discussion among the Iraqi labour movement, media and those interests in the labour law for amendments and suggestion before being a binding law.
Building the Union
The dictatorship has gone but after three decades of internal repression, turmoil, wars, unjust economic sanctions, Iraqi society has been devastated. And we do not yet enjoy real sovereignty or democracy. The trade unions are essential to the fabric of the democratic civil society we must rebuild.
A large, organised and confident trade union movement could do a great deal to bring Iraqis together regardless of their religious, ethnic or national origins. The IFTU is not Arab, Shia, Kurd or Sunni, Assyrian or Christian, but brings all together to improve working conditions, pay and social provision.
The IFTU is independent of all political parties and of the government too.
What we campaign for
We must build the union by active campaigning work. We fight on many fronts:
* For workers' rights to organise freely, to join or form a union and have the right to strike and enjoy trade union representation.
Firefighters and Dockers were denied the right to join a union by the 1987 Labour laws of Saddam Hussein. Now, with the help of the IFTU, firefighters and dockers have their own unions committees and are voting for their representatives for the first time in three decades.
* For workers right to be actively involved in influencing economic and social policies.
The IFTU welcomes foreign investments that bring much-needed technology and jobs for Iraqis. But we oppose privatisation. The former occupation authority was pursuing a full privatisation policy. The IFTU succeeded, with help of progressive elements within the former Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in keeping off the agenda the issue of privatising the economy until Iraq has an accountable government that is democratically elected by the people of Iraq.
* For organised workers to be actively involved in rebuilding of civil society and ultimately democracy, together with other social movements.
* For an increase in the role of women at all levels within the unions and in wider civil society.
* For cooperation with Arab, regional and international labour movements and to win their help to equip Iraqi working people with new skills and knowledge.
* For special attention to the social and economic needs of disabled people of whom there are many after several wars.
* For Jobs! More than 50% of our people remain unemployed.
The IFTU is actively seeking to develop our work among the unemployed. We plan to open centres for the unemployed and in particular the youth. In our view any serious programme of support would involve a range of training programmes (for example ICT); general educational programmes – including numeracy and literacy civic courses; leisure and recreational programmes. Due to our lack of resources we are unable to make this operational, but consultation with NGOs is underway to make this necessary project a reality in the near future.
The need for international trade union solidarity
So, our goals are many and great. However, our resources are few. The IFTU lacks basic resources to carry out this ambitious but necessary programme. We have not had access to the funds of the official Saddam unions, which are frozen for now. Meanwhile we lack such basic essentials as desks, chairs and office equipment such as computers and faxes and other IT technologies.
So the IFTU has been asking our brothers and sisters in the international labour movement to provide the IFTU with practical assistance. The IFTU also needs training in basic skills such as Health and Safety and Collective Bargaining.
The British trade union movement, with strong TUC encouragement, has been very supportive. We have received practical support from many unions including the RMT, the FBU, Unison and the PCS and the GMB. Such support has been invaluable and we have been inspired by such gestures of solidarity. UNISON has invited 6 young Iraqi trade union leaders for training in trade union representation late October 2004. The FBU April 2004 delivered a large container of 600 essential life-saving fire kits (boots, leggings, tunic & helmet) including chemical suits to the IFTU and Iraqi firefighters all made it from the port in Umm Qasr and are planning new delegation.
The IFTU has good relations with international Labour movement like the ICFTU, with many European federations such as the CCOO, CGT and CGIL and with COSATO, the AFL-CIO and with many other trade union centres around the world, such as the Korean labour movement. The Swedish unions have also provided financial support to run basic courses in Trade Unionism.
Achieving a Sovereign and Democratic Iraq
Our third and most difficult task of all is to help achieve a sovereign and democratic Iraq. It is crucial that occupation ends and full and real sovereignty is restored to Iraqis.
Only in this way can the anti-people forces be isolated. The so-called ‘resistance’ is no ‘national liberation movement’. Let me give you one example of the work of this so-called ‘resistance’. On Monday July 26 five Iraqi workers, all women, all cleaners, were waiting for a bus to their cleaning job at Basra airport. Elements of the 'resistance' drove past and sprayed them with bullets. Samar Muhammad, (18 years old) and Nidal Abdullah (20 years old) were killed instantly. Two more, Rasmiya Khalil, (39 years old) and Bushra Sabri (45 years old), were seriously injured and taken to hospital. Kahlil told Reuters 'I was covered in the blood of my friends'.
These murderers are either Saddam supporters anxious to keep their privileges, and who wish to restore a fascist-type regime, or they are fundamentalists. Neither can offer any hope to Iraqi workers.
Of course, the ‘resistance’ exploits anti-US sentiment. That is why the UN must play a pivotal role in the transition to a new democratic and federal Iraq. But most importantly, Iraqis must govern themselves. Yes, the recent UN resolution 1546 is a positive development and will strengthen the Iraqi people's determination to regain full sovereignty. Yes, the transfer of some power to an Iraqi government is a crucial step forward to end the occupation. But the road to full sovereignty and self-determination is signposted ‘Free, Open and Democratic Elections!’. Nothing less is acceptable.
Iraq is potentially a very wealthy country. But we are crippled by debt. It would help a great deal if the debts run by Saddam and his cronies were cancelled or substantially reduced. We may be an oil-rich country but Saddam squandered much of that wealth on wars and arms. The international community should seek to abolish Iraq’s debt burden or reduce it substantially. This was money borrowed not for the development of Iraq but for its destruction (see Jubilee Iraq website for details).
But there is much cause for hope. Iraq is rich in history, culture and education. And, as I hope I have made clear, it is rich in traditions of popular struggle, of secular and progressive politics, and of worker organisation. You know Iraqi historical vocabulary is rich in the language of protest. ‘Al-Wathba’ (The Leap) comes from the 1948 revolt against the British. ‘Al-Intifada’ (the Uprising) from the student protests of 1952. And ‘al-Thawra’, or revolution, from the 14 July1958 Revolution. It is our job to reclaim these traditions of popular democratic protest.
The scenes we see on television screens are indeed awful. But they cannot be allowed to disguise the people’s fervent hope for a democratic Iraq. That Iraq can and must, emerge. We cannot afford pessimism.
With the help of the international workers' solidarity, the IFTU can play its role in winning these goals. We can win a Labour Code that we can work with. We can build the IFTU into a powerful force for good in Iraq. And we can help a sovereign and democratic Iraq to emerge from the long night of Saddam. In all these tasks we are appealing for your solidarity.
Abdullah Muhsin
IFTU, August 2004
The history of trade unionism in the Iraqi oil industry began in the 1930s, when union committees were formed in Baghdad, Basra and Kirkuk.
In 1930, about 1600 workers were employed by the oil companies, but improvements in production, the discoveries of new oil wells and increase in exports meant that this soared very quickly to over 10,000 in 1957 and 48, 000 by 1975.
Oil union committees were formed and fought for workers' rights across Iraq. The oil union at the Kirkuk plant organized the first strike on July 1946, but the government brutally suppressed the strike and 15 strikers were martyred.
The state became increasingly dependent on oil revenue during the 1940s and 50s. This increased workers' awareness of importance of trade unionism. New and determined leaders emerged through the struggle for workers' democratic rights and membership of trade unions also expanded. By 1969 18,000 members were part of 9 oil workers branches but over the next two years this dropped to 16,000 in 8 branches due to political and economic instability.
By 1973 after the nationalisation of the oil industry, increased efficiency and the significant jump in oil prices led to huge increases in the workforce and union membership rose to 47,870.
It was in this context of mass unionisation of the lucrative oil industry that Saddam's 1987 anti union Decrees (numbers 150 and 52) banned public sector workers from joining or forming unions. These decrees halved the number of unions from 12 to 6.
The Iraqi labour movement received a severe blow from Saddam's fascist anti-union laws and state repression. A campaign of repression, imprisonment and execution was carried out by Saddam's dictatorial regime against oil workers. Many disappeared without trace.
But trade unionism in Iraq had deeper roots, which Saddam's brutal regime could not manage to eradicate completely. A clandestine trade union movement was formed. The Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement (WDTUM) began organizing secretly in small trade union groupings. But despite severe state repression, its leaders and activists fought in defence of working people's legitimate rights to union representation.
After the fall of Saddam's hated regime, many trade union activists of different political persuasions, including oil worker activists, initiated the rebuilding of Iraqi unions on a democratic and pluralistic basis.
On 16 May 2003 the oil workers established their Oil and Gas Union in an open meeting held at the Al Dora oil refinery in Baghdad and a preparatory committee was established.
Since then 18 oil union committees have been formed in Baghdad. Many tens of oil committees are also formed in Basra and Kirkuk.
Membership of the union runs into tens of thousands and the Oil and Gas Union is affiliated to the Iraqi Federation of Trade Union (IFTU).
Iraqi Oil workers like the rest of Iraqi working people are struggling in the most difficult and complicated circumstances. They are struggling to rebuild the infrastructure of the oil industry which was destroyed as a result of wars, foreign invasion and occupation. They are struggling along side other Iraqis for the return of full Iraqi sovereignty.
Oil workers also struggle to defend their rights for decent job and better pay. Wages are low and working conditions are dangerous. Iraq has no labour code that guarantees and protects working people's rights. Oil workers have been subjected to waves of bombing and terrorist acts by local and foreign extremists which have killed many oil workers.
The IFTU and the Oil and Gas Union back policies to ease oil workers suffering, to improve wages and working conditions.
Oil workers along side other worker resist privatisation in the public sector and especially in the oil sector. The Oil and Gas Union stated clearly that oil must remain a property in the hands of Iraqi people. Multinational companies should not be allowed to reap easy profits at the cost of well-being of Iraqis.
Due the high level of unemployment not least of oil workers, the Oil and Gas Union strongly oppose the importation of foreign workers, whilst thousands of skilled Iraqis have no job. Jobs should go first to Iraqi workers.
The Oil and Gas Union is working closely with both Basra IFTU and the national IFTU to organise training courses in trade union representation with assistance from regional and international trade union centres.
The Oil and Gas Union is working to strengthen its cooperation and friendship with energy trade union centres around the world and seeking their support and solidarity to enable the union better to defend its members' rights.
Iraqi Oil and Gas Union
Baghdad
21 August 2004
Mrs Hashimia Muhsin Hussein has been elected the President of the Electricity and Energy Workers' Union in Basra - the first woman trade union leader in Iraq's history.
Hashimia Muhsin Hussein exclusively outlined to the IFTU web site her union's work and the current challenges faced by workers in the highly sensitive energy sector in particular as well as the social and economic problems facing workers in general.
Mrs Hussein first explained how she became President of the Electricity and Energy Union in Basra, saying she was hesitant at first to put her name forward for election due to economic hardship and social problems women are experiencing in Basra and Iraq.
However, she became convinced that in order to improve working conditions, wages and social provision - and above all women's rights - she needed to be an active campaigner and to take up a leading position inside the electricity and energy union.
Mrs Hussein put her name forward for election to the union presidency in May 2004. She won the full support and trust of her colleagues who encouraged and appealed to her to stand for the post of Union President.
Mrs Hussein won the post, because of her charisma and strong personality and her reputation as a solid defender of workers' rights and particularly of women's rights.
Since winning the post on 13th May 2004, she has campaigned relentlessly for workers' welfare at Basra's energy and electricity plants. However, she said that workers there are still facing huge problems. For example, some local Iraqi civil administrators in Basra are deliberately trying to revive the repressive practices and attitudes of Saddam's discredited 1987 anti-union law, which banned public sector workers from forming or joining unions.
Mrs Hashimia Hussein stressed the strong links her union has with the IFTU's Basra regional organisation. She said that her union was one of the founders of the IFTU Basra and will remain affiliated. IFTU Basra is a full and active member of the IFTU.
Mrs Hussein and leading members of the Basra Electricity and Energy Union dismissed "false rumours circulating abroad that her union is not part of the IFTU."
"These rumours aim to confuse and undermine the real work of the IFTU and its affiliated unions."
She called upon good unbiased journalists to report the facts.
She said: "The IFTU is the largest union in Iraq and our union is a part of the Basra and national IFTU, which will continue to struggle for workers rights' to union representation, social justice and a stable, pluralistic and democratic Iraq."
The ousting of the Saddam dictatorship has opened up a long suppressed aspiration for democratisation of state and society in Iraq especially for those who embrace social, political, ethnic and national diversity, despite the complex and extremely difficult situation caused by the occupation.
Iraq has huge oil wealth and this will continue to be a key contributor in the future development of her economic and human resources. The safeguarding of this oil wealth for the Iraqi people must be the prime objective of the new Iraqi interim government and any future democratically elected transitional government currently promised for early 2005.
Oil will remain the main backbone of the Iraqi economy in the near future; the way in which oil will be exploited and distributed will certainly determine the form and shape of the future social and political regime in Iraq.
Three possible scenarios are facing the oil industry in Iraq:
1. The privatisation of Iraq’s oil industry (the wholesale sell-off of oil wells and infrastructure to multinational companies).
2. Encouraging foreign international oil companies to invest in the development of Iraq’s oil industry using new forms of contracts different from those applied under the previous regime.
3. The oil industry remains under the control of the public sector, similar to other oil producing countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the Gulf States.
In order to provide an accurate account of the state of the oil sector in Iraq, one must look at the period of UN sanctions, the impact of the recent war and the subsequent occupation of the country.
UN Sanctions 1990-2003:
The unjust UN sanctions starved the oil industry in Iraq. During the first half of the 1990s, the Iraqi Oil Ministry, in accordance with the UN “oil for food programme” experienced extreme difficulties in importing much needed spare parts for the industry, heavy engineering machinery, new tools and advanced technologies.
Furthermore, the implementation process for those contracts that were signed and agreed was rather slow on both sides - the UN and the former dictatorial regime of Saddam - due to bureaucratic inefficiency and slow hierarchical procedures.
Many contracts were left open without precise completion date. But the recent war of March 2003 and thereafter the prevailing lack of security meant that many previously agreed contracts had to be postponed. However, some goods had arrived by the end of last year (2003).
In addition to the war, the breakdown of social order that took place during its immediate aftermath and the current and continuing lack of security have all intensified the difficulties of the oil sector in Iraq. This is because much heavy oil machinery was stolen and smuggled beyond Iraq's borders. Other machinery and plant was destroyed and damaged deliberately in acts of sabotages or as a direct result of bombing. According to the current Oil Ministry goods that were stolen, damaged or smuggled from the oil sector are very expensive to replace and the ministry has lacked funds up until the second quarter of 2004. This has meant that the ministry was unable to buy new machinery and technology.
The former occupation authority (CPA) did not provide the Iraqi Oil Ministry with sufficient funds for it to invest in the development of the oil industry; but rather was given only enough money to run the ministry and pay wages and other bureaucratic structural costs.
Due to continuous pressure from the Oil Ministry, the occupation authority, and just before it was dissolved by UN Security Council resolution 1546, provided additional money to be spent on the development of the industry, digging new oil wells and improving the structure of others.
The Oil Ministry was allocated $2.1 Billion from the US 18.4 Billion that had been approved by US Congress for the reconstruction of Iraq. The $2.1 Billion was intended for the rebuilding of the outdated oil industry and to import oil industry components, which Iraq lacked as a result of the war and the sanctions. Please note that the decision on the expenditure of the $2.1 Billion remained in the hands of the CPA, and was made by the occupation authority and not the ministry.
Key oil industry plants such as the oil refineries were subjected to armed attacks, looting and sabotage soon after the war. Al Dora refinery and other major plants and key installations in Baghdad and Basra, and the Bejy oil refineries, were looted and severely damaged.
Major Southern Oil plants, such as Al Rumaila and Al Zubair were looted, vandalised and subjected to severe damage. The oil pipe line that transports oil from the south of the country to the north was attacked and damaged by smugglers and saboteurs.
Currently oil production stands at 2.8 million barrels a day. The Oil Ministry is aiming at increasing this level to 4 million barrels a day in four years. To achieve the level of production to 4 million barrel depends on the Ministry's ability to obtain new spare parts, using new structures to restore oil production levels and modernizing the transportation structures of oil (by means of road, sea and overland pipe lines).
The country has huge oil reserves that currently stand as the second in the world. It is possible that Iraq may have the largest oil reserves in the world.
Oil revenues stand at 97% of Iraq national income in hard currency. Hence Iraq’s economy currently entirely depends on oil and for this reason deserves special attention from the current interim government, the future elected government in 2005 and key agencies of the state.
It has been proposed recently to establish an Oil and Gas Commission that would be responsible for overseeing, protecting and modernizing oil production and increasing investment. There is also a desire to establish a National Oil Commission and National Oil Company with many different specialist companies dealing with the production of oil components, including the production of gas.
The IFTU has been informed by reliable sources at the Oil Ministry that if the US and other countries want to buy Iraqi oil they will have to buy it on the open market at competitive prices. The sources said, “Nobody shall get a special rate”
Abdullah Muhsin
IFTU
1300 delegates representing people and organisations from Iraq's 18 provinces defied the extremist wreckers and terrorists - both Islamist fundamentalists and Saddam suporters - by gathering in Baghdad's Convention Centre on Sunday 15 August 2004 to elect an interim National Assembly and to engage in an open national dialogue on Iraq's future.
Amongst the delegates were women activists, trade union leaders and civil society representatives including doctors, teachers and lawyers, as well as religious figures, political parties, tribal leaders and businessmen.
They came from Najaf, Falluja, Basra, Kirkuk, Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan and represented Kurds, Arabs, Sunni and Shia Muslims, Iraqi Christians, Turkomen, Yezidis and Assyrians.
Despite shortcomings and serious violations in the process of electing members of the conference, Iraqis nevertheless see the conference as an important means to strengthen the democratic political process during the interim phase and prepare the ground for democratic elections in January 2005. These will elect a Transitional National Assembly to prepare a draft for a permanent constitution that will be the basis for a general election in January 2006 to elect a sovereign and fully legitimate government.
The interim National Assembly will consist of 100 representatives. Delegates at the Iraqi National Conference will elect 81 seats in the assembly with the remaining 19 going to former members of the Iraqi Governing Council who are not members of the interim government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mr Ayad Allawi.
The interim National Assembly will oversee and guide the Interim government. The assembly will have limited legislative power: it will have the right to appoint ministers if posts are vacant and it will have the power to approve the 2005 financial budget.
Those who worked against the interests of the Iraqi people, to derail this important democratic initiative have failed. The mortar bombs and shells that exploded close to where delegates assembled for the conference will not deter the Iraqi people from moving forward to build a secular, democratic and federal Iraq.
The Camden Branch of UNISON, the public sector workers’ union organised a meeting on Thursday 5th August at Camden Town Hall in north London for trade unionists to meet Gene Bruskin, co-founder and National Convener of US Labor Against War (USLAW) http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/. Gene was visiting London to meet British labour movement activists campaigning against the war on Iraq and to speak to the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) about the US/UK occupation of their country and Iraqi workers' struggle for jobs, democracy and real sovereignty.
IFTU representative Abdullah Muhsin meets Gene Bruskin of USLAW
Liz Leicester Chair of Camden UNISON opened the packed meeting which was attended by grass roots trade union activists and national trade union leaders, including Tony Donaghey RMT National President. Dick Barry of UNISON’s National Policy Department outlined his union’s plans to bring young Iraqi trade unionists to London for education and training courses.
RMT member Alex Gordon, who participated in a British trade union delegation to Iraq in October 2003 spoke about the recent successes of British trade unionists in developing anti-war policies in the British TUC and the labour movement. The continuing the occupation of Iraq by US and UK governments now requires British trade unions to build effective solidarity action with the Iraqi labour movement and the IFTU.
He called on trade unionists to support the motion on Iraq submitted by NATFHE, the University & College Lecturers' Union, to the forthcoming TUC Conference in September 2004. The British labour movement needs to support their sisters and brothers in Iraq to rebuild their labour movement. This would mark a welcome development of the important decision adopted by the TUC at its Conference in 2003 to condemn the war on Iraq.
Alex Gordon (RMT), Abdullah Muhsin (IFTU), Gene Bruskin (USLAW) and Daniel Blackburn (International Committee on Trade Union Rights) meet with IFTU representative.
USLAW National Convenor, Gene Bruskin congratulated British trade unionists for the anti-war position they had won at the 2003 TUC Conference. However he contrasted the position of the US unions: "We have not won the argument against the war in the US labour movement. Thus, I am here representing the rank and file labour coalition USLAW, not representing the AFL-CIO."
Gene spoke at length about US foreign policy and the traditional reluctance of US labour unions to even discuss this matter - by default supporting US foreign policy. However, he said by contrast the labour movement in the build up to the war on Iraq has developed a grass roots campaign against the war, the invasion and the occupation of Iraq. In particular USLAW calls for the US military budget to be slashed to pay for domestic social policy programs.
Gene pointed out that the US and UK governments are the only significant members of the coalition forces occupying Iraq (the others are just ‘window dressing’). Labour movements in the US and UK must increase solidarity action against the occupation. This is why it is crucial that the US labour movement and others around the world must now support initiatives taken by Iraqi workers to build trade unions. He said: "It is not enough just what we say, it is important to say what we can do." On behalf of USLAW he presented Abdullah Muhsin, the UK representative of the IFTU with a cheque for $5,000.
Abdullah Muhsin of the IFTU gave an account of the history of the independent democratic labour movement in Iraq, from Saddam Hussein’s brutal suppression of the tobacco workers’ strikes organised by the Workers’ Democratic Trade Union Movement in Kurdistan in the 1980s to the foundation of the IFTU in May 2003.
Abdullah pointed out that the Iraqi people’s language and culture is rich in words and ideas expressing revolt and liberation; the ‘intifada’ of the Iraqi student movement in the 1950s and ‘Al Thawra’ (the revolution) the proper name for the area of Baghdad often referred to now as ‘Sadr City’. Abdullah reminded the meeting that the so-called ‘Iraqi resistance’ referred to in the media represent neither a national liberation struggle (but rather an attempt to ‘balkanise’ Iraq) nor the possibility of re-building Iraqi civil society (except on the model of a mediaeval theocracy).
The IFTU welcomes the many expressions of support from the international labour movement for their task of rebuilding Iraq’s trade unions and believes that they are fundamental to establishing a free and democratic secular Iraq in which civil society can be rebuilt.
Hadi Salih
since the formal end of the US/UK occupation with UN Resolution 1546 which laid the basis for the ending of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and lead to the subsequent formation of the Interim Government on the 28 June 2004. Three points emerge from which I would like to highlight
One of the most significant developments taking place now is the preparation for the general election due early next year, which will put Iraq on the path of building a democratic and federal political system.
Iraqis are holding their national conference to elect an 80 member + 20 former IGC to form an Iraqi National Assembly that will oversee the work of Iraq’s interim government during the transitional period.
Iraq‘s 18 provinces have started their caucuses to elect their representatives to the 1000-member strong national conference due to take place mid August 2004.
In order to guarantee the election outcome that commands the greatest possible support and legitimacy from the Iraqi people, the above values must be respected.
Transparent, free, open and fair elections are fundamental democratic principals and fair conduct of democratic processes.
Unfortunately in some provinces some influential political forces and government agencies have placed many obstacles to hinder wider public participation in this essential political process of nominating their chosen representatives. For example, information about the election procedures and the nomination process were not made available to many would-be candidates and to the general public. Many Iraqis, including trade union leaders who wanted to put their names forward for caucuses’ elections could not obtain election registration forms.
The security issue remains a problem. Fascist type forces and certain islamist fundamentalist are continuing their criminal acts and their violence against ordinary Iraqi civilians, workers and the unemployed. The aim of these anti-democratic forces is to stop the democratic process-taking place now in Iraq. They are working hard to derail the election process currently underway.
In June 2004, six unions held their open conferences in Baghdad. Each has elected a legitimate leadership in a democratic and transparent manner – a procedure the IFTU is working hard to make a norm of its trade union culture. These conferences adopted policies to increase trade unions awareness and develop union leaders especially around areas of democratic values in trade unions and in wider society.
The IFTU is working hard to assume its role as defender of the aspiration and interests of working people but also as a significant player in the rebirth of civil society.
Since the formation of the IFTU on the16 May 2003 the federation is developing and consolidating its fraternal relationship with regional and international trade union centres.
The IFTU leaders have visited Sweden, the UK, France, Italy and Spain to strengthen relationships.
The IFTU has received material and political solidarity from trade union centres in Europe, US, Africa and Latin America and Asia. The IFTU is planning to send delegations to Europe for trade union education and training.
Thanks to financial assistance from the Swedish LO union and an Iraqi NGO named Tamoz for Social Development, the IFTU organized a training course in trade union history in Iraq. Unison, Britain’s largest union has invited six young trade unionists for training in trade union representation.
Many trade unions centres also visited Iraq and met with the IFU leadership and rank and file to learn about the trade union situation in Iraq and to seek ways to help the fledgling labour movement.
Visitors include the British TUC, the American International Solidarity Centre and Cgil from Italy.
Here we would like to mention the solidarity gesture made by the British FBU by Brain Joyce to their fire fighters brothers in Iraq. The FBU sent a container filled with essential fire fighter kits. Iraqis received this solidarity gesture warmly.
The IFTU has warm and strong relationship with ICFTU. The ICFTU has conducted a fact-finding mission in Iraq February 2004 despite the lack of security and the danger the faced.
During the visit the ICFTU conducted numbers of meetings with the IFTU and its regional branches. The ICFTU delegation expressed its delight at the enormous appetite for trade union representation.
The printing union in Iraq is considered one of the oldest unions. Historically members of this union fought bitter struggles for the right to form and join a union and for them to form their own printing union, a union that could reflect that could defend their rights.
Currently printing workers are facing sever problems. Many of the former state printing agencies were looted or destroyed. Thousands of workers who worked there are now unemployed and without social provision for themselves or their families.
However the private printing sector is facing also extreme shortages in obtaining primary printing materials, high prices and competition from large foreign printing companies. This impacted also negatively upon the Iraqi workforce and hence increased the level of unemployment. The IFTU is confident that recent increase of work activities within the printing industry will certainly ease the pressure workers are facing now.
The Iraqi oil sector is considered the most important component of the Iraqi economy. It is the key contributor to the Iraqi national burse. The oil sector employs a large number of Iraqi workers.
This sector saw the formation of a strong trade union movement at the early decades of the 1920th century. A labour movement that had led many struggle and strikes over the course f the 20th century is rebuilding itself democratically.
Saddam’s dictatorship sought to abolish trade union formation in this crucial public sector. In 1987 issued his fascist-type decree that panned workers within the public sector form joining unions.
After the fall of Saddam’s April 2003, workers within the oil industry, with help and encouragement of the WDTUM (the clandestine union movement formed in 1980), established the independent Oil and Gas Union across in Baghdad, Basra and Kirkuk, Bejy and across the rest of Iraq. The Oil and gas Union is part of the IFTU and affiliated.
Dockers historically were key figures in the political and trade union struggle, for workers rights and political freedom.
Dockers suffered terribly as through Saddam’s wars. Iraqi ports were destroyed and many thousands of Dockers were killed. They were the first to experience the atrocities of wars, subsequent invasion and occupation and now unemployment. Dockers were also banned from forming or joining independent unions by Saddam’s 1987 anti union law.
But Dockers are now organizing and had formed their union committees, which are part of the IFTU in Basra.
Dockers like their sisters and brothers in the oil sector, the railway and other industries are working along side other Iraqi progressive and patriotic forces for a democratic and federal Iraq.
Morning Star - 7 August 2004
Karl Stewart
IRAQI trade unionist Abdullah Mushen demanded an end to the occupation and a "sovereign and democratic Iraq" in central London on Thursday night. At a packed meeting organised by Camden branch of UNISON, Mr Mushen, who is London representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), described how, under Saddam Hussein, the Ba'athist dictatorship turned the state-run General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) into a "yellow union" and a "tool of oppression."
"It was used to spy on workers and its offices became centres of torture and interrogation where many were murdered," he noted.
Iraqis fought back, launching the illegal Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement in 1980, which organised widespread strikes and protests.
"In 1984," Mr Mushen continued, "the movement organised a huge tobacco workers' strike, but it was brutally crushed and its leaders were executed." Mr Mushen and many other workers' leaders fled the country, but returned early last year to rebuild Iraq's trade union movement in the face of harassment from the new oppressors, the occupation forces.
Since the relaunch of the IFTU last May, 12 new independent trade unions have been set up covering the country's various industrial sectors, organising vigorous workplace recruitment campaigns.
Mr Mushen stressed that, while the struggle to rebuild the workers' movement faces daily opposition from the occupation forces, workers are striking back.
"The IFTU office in Baghdad, which was closed down by the US military last December, is now open again," he said, explaining that the Transport and Communications Union had organised a march on the office last month and had reclaimed and reopened the office themselves.
As well as direct actions such as these, along with strikes and other protests, the IFTU is fighting for a new "labour code" encompassing workers' rights into the new constitution.
Another crucial area of struggle is the fight against unemployment. Official figures stand at a shocking 28 per cent, but, according to Mr Mushen, the true figure could be as high as 50 per cent.
"Our country's history is rich in popular democratic struggle," he said. "The job of the IFTU is to reclaim that tradition and lead the struggle for a strong, democratic and secular Iraq."
Appealing for support from Britain's trade unionists, he vowed: "With the solidarity from the international labour movement, our people can achieve these goals."
posted by abdullah
"Morning Star" - 5 August 2004
INTERVIEW: Iraqi trade unionist Subhi Abdullah Mashadani talks to the Morning Star about the rebuilding of a labour movement.
IRAQI Subhi Abdullah Mashadani experienced the brutal repression of Saddam Hussein's regime at first hand. But, after the dictatorship's collapse, he was vocal in the campaign to establish a new free labour federation. His work was rewarded last year, when he was elected as the first general secretary of the democratic Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).
An invitation from RMT to address its conference brought Mr Mashadani to Britain, where he also addressed the UNISON conference and was, in his words, "warmly received."
Here, he speaks to the Star about the situation facing Iraq's fledgling labour federation, the IFTU.
In 1963, when Mr Mashadani was a rail worker, he was arrested by Saddam's Ba'ath Party because of his political activism and imprisoned for eight years.
Now retired, he was one of the many progressive Iraqis forced to operate underground inside their country before the fall of the regime. Today, committed trade unionists like Mr Mashadani, operating on a shoestring in a population with little experience of the true history and role of the unions, have formed the IFTU.
It's fighting its corner in a country under occupation. Workers' rights weren't on the agenda of the colonial mandarins at the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
He describes the occupiers' attitude as "negative," adding that then US viceroy Paul Bremer had refused a request to unfreeze IFTU assets so that the federation could carry out trade union work.
"We said: 'It is not Bremer's money, it is not CPA money - it is our money‚" he recounts.
The federation never heard from Bremer on this request, says Mr Mashadani. "What we received after that meeting with them was their forces raiding the IFTU headquarters in Baghdad and arresting eight leaders."
They were released eventually, but this incident spurred on the organisers of Iraq's new trade unions.
"We continued to organise and we now have 12 strong national unions," he says.
Lack of security and the - interlinked - occupation, which is designed to cement the US presence in this highly strategic, mineral-rich region, have combined to hinder IFTU activities.
"The governing council issued a decree recognising us as a legitimate body. Again, did not agree or adhere to that. "But we weren't deterred," he adds.
Of the 12 unions in the IFTU, six have already held conferences and elected a host of regional committees.
The other six are unable to hold theirs because of a 1987 law passed by Saddam banning trade union organisation in state companies such as the oil sector and the railways. It is still being enforced.
Despite this, explains Mr Mashadani, "these unions managed to impose their legitimacy (in the workplace) because they were supported by the workers."
He is hopeful that the current tortuous political process inside and outside Iraq will bring a positive result - but has reservations and sets out IFTU demands.
"It's a step forward. It is good, but it is not the best model and still has some deficiencies," he says. He demands: "We call for Iraq to have real and full sovereignty.
"We call for the withdrawal of troops and at the same time a full and accountable elected government for the people "Crucially, the United Nations should now have an active role."
Mr Mashadani adds: "We are campaigning for trade unions to be able to play a role in the institutions of civil society that would make a future government."
The IFTU has representatives involved in the process to establish a transitional government. The federation's general secretary is confident that its role will be respected despite the heavy US influence in Iraq.
The transitional administrative law governing the current period safeguarded the position of trade unions and the right to protest. However, doubts were raised when the UN resolution on the "handover" of sovereignty, which sought to legitimise continued occupation but also set out a framework to bring about nationwide elections, failed to mention the transitional law.
Mr Mashadani points out that Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi has said "openly that his government should adhere to the transitional law.
"If the government or anybody restricts our work to organise and to have representation we shall campaign against it. We shall not be intimidated," he adds.
Despite being severely under-resourced and restricted by the situation in Iraq, IFTU unions have netted some welcome management concessions for members.
At several big firms, they have negotiated better deals - both increases to wages and bonuses. And, in the state oil, gas and railway sectors, members have defied the ban on organising and emerged victorious. Minimum wages for these workers have increased from 69,000 dinars to between 125,000 and 150,000 dinars a month.
The unions have also forced managers to reinstate around 450 workers who had been expelled by the former regime. The scourge of unemployment makes it easier for bosses to abuse their employees. As Mr Mashadani complains, "a free market is a free market."
But on the issue of the foreign workers currently earning big money by working for transnational contractors in Iraq, he pleads: "We have no problem with our brothers and sisters coming to work, but we have a bigger problem ourselves.
"It is crucial for the people of Iraq to have the right to a job before workers from abroad."
Since the Iraqi governing council recognised the IFTU, it has been allowed to sit on government committees dealing with the new labour code, social provision and pensions - both of which were enshrined in the transitional administrative law - as well as those dealing with health and dismissals.
Mr Mashadani is keen to emphasise the independence of the IFTU from the state - understandable, given the subservience of Saddam's collaborationist "yellow unions."
"Although we sit on some committees, we do so because we want to keep an eye on the situation, to have a stronger say in the welfare of working people," he says.
However, the challenges facing the fledgling federation are great. Like many of the country's civil institutions, trade unionists run the risk of becoming targets for occupation forces or reactionaries within Iraq. Mr Mashadani explains that visits like his "are crucial to get an understanding of Iraq's labour movement."
But more solid assistance is required if the IFTU is to flourish within the country's changing political landscape. The dictatorship has left behind a generation that fails to grasp the principles of trade unionism.
Already, as well as assistance from RMT, UNISON has adopted a policy of supporting the IFTU and hopes to bring a delegation of its members to Britain for training.
"We have also received support in Spain and France," says Mr Mashadani. He highlights the assistance given by the AFL-CIO office in Amman and plans to set up training schools for the Iraqi labour movement, which "could, maybe, be held in Jordan."
Workers in Sweden have, he says, "also assisted us to open a training course in Iraq to inform people the history and role of trade unionism." And there's another innovative plan, which is grounded in the theatre-based storytelling tradition in Iraq.
After the interview, Abdullah Muhsin, the IFTU representative in London and acting translator for the day, was so keen to publicise this project that he chased after me in the street to give me extra details.
At the UNISON conference, the IFTU launched the Khalil Shawqi Appeal.
Named after a progressive Iraqi actor, artist and playwright who also worked on the railways, it is raising funds to take travelling theatres to every workplace in Iraq.
"The purpose is to raise awareness for the whole of civil society and democracy and at the same time to tell people what a union is," explains Mr Muhsin.
The first step in this ambitious plan is buying a bus and the IFTU is appealing for British trade unionists to get involved.
Hope still survives in Iraq, but help is needed if it is to be kept alive.
Interview by Richard Bagley
posted by abdullah
At the recent conference of the IFTU-affiliated Transport & Communication Workers' Union delegates unanimously passed a motion instructing the newly elected union leadership to reclaim the union's Baghdad office building closed since December 6 2003 by an act of illegal aggression by troops of the occupation authority.
At the time of the unjustified attack, the international labour movement responded quickly and effectively to the appeal that the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions (IFTU) issued to the international labour movement and supporters of freedom, democracy and human rights all over the world to condemn the vicious attack by the occupation forces:
"The American occupation forces, using a force of about ten armoured cars and tens of soldiers, attacked the temporary headquarters of the IFTU (at the headquarters of the Transport & Communication Workers' Union, in Karkh district, Allawi Al Hilla, Baghdad) at 10.30 am on Saturday 6/12/2003, and arrested 8 of its leaders and cadres, who were handcuffed and taken away to an unknown destination.
"The attackers ransacked and destroyed the IFTU's possessions, tearing down banners and posters condemning acts of terror, tarnishing the name of the IFTU and that of the General Union of Transport Workers (on the building's main front) with black paint and smashing windows glass, without giving any reason or explanation.
"The IFTU, as one of the most important organization of civil society, that includes within its ranks sons of working class, the builders of a new Iraq and the democratic future of Iraq, strongly condemns this unjustified terrorizing act by the occupation forces which targetted trade unionist cadres and leaders who are well-known for their struggle against the hated dictatorship... calling for the release of our detained colleagues as soon as possible, and condemning any attempt to launch a new attack on trade union centres, or further arrests of trade union leaders, we stress that the Iraqi working class will not forgive this attack which constitutes a blatant violation of democracy and human rights."
Executive Bureau - The Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions (IFTU)
The 8 arrested trade unionists were released unharmed on Sunday 7th December 2003.
Now in a sign of the growing confidence of Iraq's democratic, independent labour movement, the Transport & Communication Workers' Union Conference has mandated it's newly-elected Executive Committee and the re-elected General Secretary, Mr Turkey Al Lehabey to take immediate steps to re-take control of their offices - the rightful property of the Iraqi labour movement.
On 1 July 2004 Transport & Communication Workers' Union leaders led a march on the office premises. The march included delegations from many branches of the union from Baghdad and other cities. The marchers reopened the building which adjoins one of Baghdad's main bus stations for the first time since it was closed by the Americans during their military raid on December 6 2004.
In scenes which witnesses compared to a carnival, the Transport & Communication Workers' Union leaders re-dedicated themselves to the organisation of the Iraqi working class and in particular those workers employed by the private bus company which is believed to have made the original complaint about the orgainising activities of the IFTU which led to the illegal attack on the union headquarters by the US occupation forces. The offices will once more be used as the main Baghdad union premises of IFTU-affiliated trade unions.
In a statement issued on 10 July 2004 the Iraqi interim government confirmed that IFTU is a legal and legitimate body that represents Iraq's labour movement."
Official memo No 743 sent on 10 July 2004 to state ministries and agencies stated that the former Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) had recognized the IFTU as a legal and legitimate trade union movement in its Decree NO 16 on 28 January 2004. The Current Interim Government considers the former IGC's Decree No 16 is still valid and therefore the IFTU and its president Rasim Al-Awady are a legal and legitimate trade union movement.
1 August 2004 Terrorist Bombings:
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) condemned the brutal attacks against innocent Iraqi civilians and places of worship. The cowardly bomb attacks on 1 August 2004 on Iraqi Christian churches in both Baghdad and Mosul, which led to death of many innocent Iraqi citizens, are desperate acts that will fail miserably.
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) calls upon the Iraqi interim government to bring to justice those responsible for these vicious attacks against Iraqi workers and civilians.