Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran August 25, 2019–On Saturday, a group of workers from HEPCO construction equipment manufacturer gathered in front of the company’s headquarters in Arak and protested to unpaid wages, their contract conditions and insurance problems.
The workers are saying, “Due to the decline of production in 2019 and the inefficiency of the management chosen by the Privatization Organization, we are worried about our job security.”
According to the workers, they have only received their wages for the first two months of the new Iranian calendar year, which started in March.
The workers resumed their protests on Sunday in front of the local offices of the regime’s parliament in Arak.
HEPCO, founded in 1974, was once the biggest manufacturer of heavy construction equipment in Iran and the Middle East, and produced 3,000 pieces of equipment per year. But since the mullahs seized power in Iran, the company has been constantly declining. HEPCO was eventually sold to private owners with ties to the regime, which further pushed it toward its collapse.
HEPCO’s workers are one of many labor communities who are protesting to delays in payments and poor work conditions. The regime’s response to labor protests has so far been hollow promises, crackdown and repression, and heavy prison sentences for protest organizers.
Protests by disabled people in Tehran
In other protests, a group of disabled people held a demonstration in front of the office of Iranian regime president Hassan Rouhani. The demonstrators, who had come to Tehran from different cities, were protesting against the government’s lack of action to implement the law in support of disabled people. The legislation was passed into law in 2017, but so far, the government refrains from allocating necessary budget to its implementation.
Protests by commercial complex investors in Rasht
In Rasht, investors of the Adineh Commercial Complex in Rasht gathered in protest to the government’s lack of response to their demands. The protesters had invested in the complex by purchasing its units in advance. But the complex has yet to be built, and the protesters are demanding the possible embezzlement cases and their perpetrators to be exposed.
