Workers' Liberty

Kathy Black spoke for US Labor Against War (USLAW) at a meeting at Melbourne Trade on 12 March. Riki Lane summarises her speech.

By Martin Thomas

Two of Iraq’s major union federations have formed a united front to fight against oil privatisation and the government’s attempt to outlaw the oil unions.

AusIraq, in Australia, has put out a petition supporting the Iraqi oil unions now under attack from the Iraqi government. Download an adapted version here; please circulate it and seek signatures.

The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions has claimed a tactical victory in the Basra oil pipeline workers’ dispute.

Union leader Hassan Jumaa announced on 11 June: “An enlarged meeting was held with... the minister... Most of the issues within the remit of the prime minister were dealt with....”

by Colin Foster

Is a new nationalist political alliance emerging in Iraq, non-sectarian or at least cross-sectarian? Some reporters in the USA claim it is. The balance of evidence, I think, indicates not.

Iraqi railway workers have begun an indefinite strike to win a pay rise and basic rights.

From Falah Alwan, president of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq

The occupation troops and their allies, and the militias, have driven society into a sectarian war. They have also confiscated the most basic liberties.

“Reactionary socialism… half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

Campaigners in Scotland building support and solidarity with trade unions in Iraq.

US and Iraqi government forces have once again raided the office of Iraq's largest trade union federation.

Text of the AWL leaflet for the 24 February anti-war demonstration, London.

The reactionary nature of the sectarian militias in Iraq has been demonstrated yet again with the killing of more trade unionists.

On 11 January militia gunmen abducted eight engineers from the Iraqi Oil Ministry as they were travelling to a Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) press conference on fuel price increases. Four of the kidnapped victims were released. One engineer, Abdukareem Mahdi, was later found dead, after being tortured. The other three, Nazar Fattah, Adil Yahia and Ahmed Maulood, remain missing and are presumed dead.

The Iraqi labour movement has been campaigning for a long time now against the principle of privatising and contracting out Iraqi oil. A joint statement in December 2006 by all the main union federations declared:

BY martin thomas

According to the Federation of Workers’ Councils of Unions, reporting on 11 October, health workers in Kerbala (southern Iraq) have held a sit-in protest, after a strike in early October calling for wage rises.

In Nasiriya (also southern Iraq), health workers have struck four times over wages.

By Martin Thomas

For the first time since early 2005, there are the beginnings of a workers’ upsurge in Iraq. According to the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions, several groups of workers have taken action in a wave of the successful strikes over wages and conditions by southern oil workers on 22 August.

by Colin Foster

On 29 August, oil pipeline workers in Basra and in Nassiriyah, in southern Iraq, announced victory in their 48-hour strike of 22-23 August, which stopped oil supplies from the south to central Iraq.

Samir Adil, president of the Iraq Freedom Congress, a movement initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, spoke to Martin Thomas when he visited London in July.

by Alan Porter

On 1 August the Worker-communist Party of Iraq and related campaigning organizations staged a protest against state terror in Iraqi Kurdistan. That week forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, part of the Kurdish government, had opened fire on a picket line at the Tasloja cement factory in Sulimaniya.

On the morning of July 27th the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan attacked workers injuring several at a factory in Tasloja in Sulaimaniya in Iraq. The workers' only crime was to be taking part in a picket of a Cement factory calling for an increase in wages. This is a clear infringement of democratic rights and basic freedom of expression.

By Martin Thomas

According to the Iraq Freedom Congress, a grouping initiated by the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, oil workers in southern Iraq are planning a strike which “aims to bring security and build a free and democratic society in Iraq”.

BY David Broder

On July 1st activists working to solidarise with the Iraqi labour movement held a conference in London to discuss the prospects of workers in Iraq and what can be done over here to help the struggle against the US/UK occupation and political Islam.

There's a conference this Saturday, which introduces itself thus: Iraq Union Solidarity has joined together with Solidarité Irak (France), the Worker-communist Party of Iraq, and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, to sponsor a conference to discuss and coordinate international activity in solidarity with the workers' and women's movements in Iraq.

According to Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (GUOE), the Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers’ union, both abroad and within Iraq.

On Tuesday (6th June) at 19:30 Iraq Union Solidarity will be holding a public meeting at the Marchmont Street Community Centre - showing 2 new short films about the Iraqi trade union movement.

IFC GOES FORWARD

by Martin Thomas

About 20,000 marched in London on 18 March against US/ UK troops in Iraq, and against war on Iran. Workers’ Liberty activists and others distributed leaflets for the Iraq Union Solidarity campaign, and did a bucket collection for the Iraqi unions which raised £289, about the same as on the bigger demonstration of March 2005 and much more than on the last “Stop The War” demonstration, September 2005.

On the Sydney (Australia) demonstration of 18 March, as well as London’s, there was a voice for the Iraqi labour movement. Members of Workers’ Liberty Australia and other supporters of “Aus-Iraq” distributed a leaflet headed: “No to occupation, no to ethnic and sectarian division, yes to the civilising, unifying power of Iraq’s trade unions”.

By Martin Thomas

Since a Shia mosque in Samarra was bombed on 22 February, Iraq has taken a new lurch towards sectarian civil war. Over a thousand people have been killed, dozens of mosques bombed.

As well as organising our own meetings, paper sales, discussions with people interested in our ideas and so on, and as well as our work in the trade unions, AWL also helps build campaigns with a more specific focus.

The following letter was sent by Pauline Bradley, the Convenor of Iraq Union Solidarity, to the Morning Star at the end of last year. A cut down version of this letter was published.