Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, August 20, 2020—On Wednesday, August 19, workers of refineries and power plants in 54 centers of 23 cities in 12 provinces across Iran continued their strikes for the nineteenth consecutive day.
Regime authorities tried to end the strike by making hollow promises, but the workers still insisted on their demands and they want to see concrete action.
The protesting workers are suffering from hard working conditions in unbearable heat and the most difficult living conditions. They do not have job security, are working based on temporary contracts and are not covered by health insurance or pensions. Their employers can fire them at any time. Their wages are many times lower than the poverty line, and even these meager wages have not been paid for several months.
Iranian teachers protest in front of the Majlis
Iranian teachers protest in front of the Majlis (Parliament)
Also on Wednesday, teachers from all over Iran gathered in front of the Majlis (parliament) to raise regime officials’ attention to their dilemmas. In their protest rally, contract teachers demanded official employment and other outstanding requests being fulfilled.
For many years, these teachers have served in the education sector under the most difficult conditions and in the most remote areas of the country. They have pursued their teachings despite countless hardships and difficulties, but now they are faced with poverty and homelessness, spending their nights in parks in order to be recruited in the country's education system, one of the protesting teachers said.
Protests by Iranian teachers (August 2020)
Workers of the HEPCO company in Arak, central Iran, protested in the factory yard for eighteenth consecutive day on Wednesday.
HEPCO workers are protesting the CEO's failure to meet workers' demands and the status of the company’s shareholders being unsettled.
Another demand of HEPCO workers is to hold the company's senior officials accountable to their one-year report card. The company CEO has not shown up for work for many weeks. It is worth mentioning that despite the deceptive promises by the regime's Social Security Organization to pay the HEPCO employees’ delayed paychecks have not been paid yet.
Workers of HEPCO equipment manufacturer continue in Arak, Markazi province
On Tuesday, August 18, youth of the villages of Mooran and Amishieh (Nawaser) in eastern Ahvaz (a major city southwest Iran) protested the employment of non-locals in the Dabal Khazaei Sugarcane Company.
“We just want jobs. We don’t deserve discrimination and unemployment," these young people are saying.
It is worth noting that 80 percent of the lands of the “Dabal Khazaei Company” are agricultural fields of these two villages, whose youth were supposed to work in for this company. However, the company is now employing non-local workers at much lower salaries.
Workers protest in Mooran and Amishieh
