See also the accompanying 6/19/05 SBM event for the article below.

Also, watch Amy Goodman's interview with Union President Hassan Juma'a Awad Al Asada
on the Democracy Now! show, Monday 6/13/05.
"Iraqi Oil Workers Fight Privatization and Occupation"

San Francisco Chronicle

Sunday, June 12, 2005

OPEN FORUM
Iraqi unions claim their voice
David Bacon

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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PHOTOS:
(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."

(2) Discontented: Unemployed police officers (left) demonstrate
outside the office of a contractor who reneged on promises
of work. Such activism is resurgent in Iraq, even though
the U.S. occupation authority never rescinded the law
banning unions. According to Hassan Juma'a Awad, president
of the General Union of Oil Workers, "Without organizing
ourselves, we would be unable to protect our industry,
which we have been looking after for generations...
The authorities kept saying that according to this law
we had no legitimacy, no right to represent workers in
the oil sector. As far as we're concerned, we were elected
by the workers. That's the only kind of legitimacy we need.
I was elected president of our union in a democratic and
free election."

(3) Making do: The furnace tender (above) for the boilers of
the power plant in al Daura oil refinery must use rags
to turn the hot valves of machinery that was imported
from Europe, much of it decades ago.

(4) Determined: A woman operates a sewing machine at Iraq's
leather industry factory, where, according to Falah Alwan,
president of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions
of Iraq, "the administration also threatened to arrest workers.
...But they organized two strikes in January in spite of that."

(5) Key indicator: The gas flare at al Daura refinery (above)
is visible throughout Baghdad, where residents monitor
its flame as a sign that the refinery, key to Iraq's economy,
is working.

(6) Vigilant: The guard at the gate of al Daura oil refinery
prevents unauthorized entry. The plant's manager armed
300 workers after the fall of Saddam Hussein; they now
provide him, in effect, with a squad to enforce his decisions.

(7) Free market: The son of a refinery worker at al Daura refinery
sells motor oil to cars passing along the highway outside
the refinery. His father receives the oil as compensation
for his low pay./ Photographs and text by David Bacon

David Bacon, a reporter and photographer who specializes
in labor issues, is author of "The Children of NAFTA"
(University of California Press, 2004).

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