NCRI, 27 November, 2008 – Hundreds of Kiyan-Tire factory workers gathered outside the mullahs’ Cooperation Ministry on Valiasr Avenue in Tehran.
The striking workers carried signs reading, “We demand our unpaid salaries” and “We don’t have enough to buy a loaf of bread.”
he authorities in the ministry called in the State Security Forces (SSF) — mullahs’ suppressive police — to remove the demonstrating workers.
The SSF agents attacked the workers beating and arresting a number of them. The strikers have not been paid for the past seven months.
Nearly 7,000 families of the striking workers are in economic disaster with winter just around the corner in Iran.
Nearly 1,200 workers walked out on April 12 for the first time when the hand picked management called in the SSF to crush their demonstration. A number of the workers were arrested in that incident.
The mullahs’ inhuman regime, fearing the spread of the move, rushed hundreds of the SSF agents to the scene to suppress the strikers. However, the local residents and youths clashed with the SSF units in support of the striking workers. They threw stones and sticks at the security forces.
It has been one of the longest strikes by the workers in the country. Kiyan-Tire is only second to that of the Sugar Cane factory workers in the southwestern city of Shoosh in which more than 5,000 workers are still on strike over their unpaid salaries since last year
