“Every worker’s cry: Death to the oppressor, be it Shah or Leader”; these slogans represent the protest lines of rebellious youth, displayed on a large banner hung from a bridge in Gorgan, a city in northern Iran, on International Workers’ Day on May 1.
This year’s Workers’ Day also witnessed international solidarity, as the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL), with over 5 million members, and the Italian Labour Union (UIL), with over 2 million members, expressed support for Iranian workers.
In a statement, CGIL stated: “The Iranian government, from the era of the oppressive Pahlavi regime and the Shah’s dictatorship to the current rule of the mullahs’ dictatorship, fails to implement any of the conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). Consequently, there is no law or protective umbrella to defend the minimum rights of workers in Iran.”
The statement adds: Workers in Iran lack job security and do not have the right to form unions or have worker representation in the workplace. The determination of the minimum wage for workers in Iran, contrary to ILO conventions, has not kept pace with the country’s inflation over the past 45 years. Workers lack appropriate safety equipment and gear in their workplaces. None of the ILO conventions or recommendations are implemented. The situation for women workers is particularly dire.
The statement from the CGIL, Italy’s oldest and largest trade union confederation, continues: Iranian workers, who have consistently faced oppression under the Shah’s dictatorship and now under the ruling religious dictatorship in Iran, are in desperate need of support from trade unions, labor organizations, and relevant international bodies. Furthermore, the International Labour Organization (ILO) must be urged to pressure the Iranian regime by placing it on its “blacklist,” ensuring that Iranian workers can achieve the minimum recognized rights afforded to workers in other countries.
Simultaneously, the Italian Labour Union (UIL), with over 2 million members in Italy’s Marche region, and various human rights organizations in Australia—including Pax Christi, Cross Link Christian Network, the Bill Crews Foundation, the Edmund Rice Centre, and the Independent Education Union—also released statements on Workers’ Day, declaring their support for the oppressed workers of Iran.
The oppression and exploitation under the mullahs’ anti-labor system, and the trampling of workers’ undeniable rights, are so severe that the state-run newspaper Jahan Sanat wrote on May 3: “Wherever there is hard labor, Kurds, Baluchis, and Sistanis are there too. Unemployment has displaced them, like many other day laborers, across the geography of Iran. Their lives taste of displacement, hardship, sweat, and empty tables…”
The same source, referring to the “cheap lives of workers,” adds: “Unfortunately, this year, and generally every year, is filled with various accidents for workers. A few months ago, we had the heartbreaking deaths of workers in the Tabas coal mine and the Damghan mine. These kinds of tragic workshop accidents mostly claim workers as victims. Meanwhile, the responsible authorities never learn their lesson. Therefore, International Workers’ Day is neither a celebration nor a symbolic ceremony; this day must be the cry of anger from workers whose voices have been ignored for years.”
One hundred years of oppression and exploitation of Iranian workers and laborers by the dictatorships of the Shah and the mullahs will undoubtedly end with the new democratic revolution of the Iranian people, led by the rebellious youth and risen laborers. The workers and other oppressed strata of Iran are now crying out that “Our rights are only won on the streets.” The fiery cries and outpouring of anger from the oppressed against the oppressors are necessary conditions for the uprising and overthrow of the mullahs’ regime and the restoration of the rights of the suffering workers.