Workers of Abadan’s Petrochemical Company went on strike and stopped working on Thursday, February 24, protesting the state-run company reneging on its obligations.
According to reports, the company’s management had issued an agreement the previous day, promising to address the workers’ needs. However, the agreement had no signature and did not guarantee any changes.
The workers of Abadan Petrochemical have been regularly protesting since last year, demanding the company to adjust their wages, bonuses, and rights. The government has yet to take concrete measures.
The protesters were chanting, “Death to the tyrant.”
A similar protest rally took place in Tabriz on Wednesday, where newly hired workers of the local petrochemical company protested policies that deprive them of their rights and employment security.
In Tehran, small investors who have lost their money in last year’s stock market crash held a rally in front of the Majlis (parliament) and protested regime policies that are enabling senior officials to manipulate the stock market and make huge profits at the expense of small investors.
In 2020, senior regime officials, including then-president Hassan Rouhani and supreme leader Ali Khamenei, encouraged the people to invest into the stock market, which is dominated mainly by the Revolutionary Guards and other regime-affiliated organizations. This prompted many ordinary people to invest their meager savings into the stock market and created an artificially inflated bubble. As could be expected, the bubble burst shortly after its peak, with regime-affiliated entities taking away huge profits and small investors collectively losing billions of dollars. This has led to a series of protests that continue to this day.
Naturally, the government and the Majlis have done nothing to address the demands of the small investors and to fight the corruption that has led to the lifesavings of ordinary Iranians being wiped off the stock market.
At the same time, a group of contract teachers held also held a rally in front of the Majlis, reiterating their demands.
The Majlis refuses to pass the laws and allocate funds to address the needs of hundreds of thousands of teachers who are struggling to make ends meet.
Iranian teachers across Iran are regularly protesting the regime’s destructive policies and indifference to their plight.
