Iraqi trade unions
Iraq Union Solidarity campaign
Submitted on 28 May, 2005 - 16:22
Information about the labour movement in Iraq, and about what's being done in the British labour movement to raise solidarity.
“Direct contact with Iraqi unionists is our reason for being”
Submitted on 20 March, 2008 - 21:11
Kathy Black spoke for US Labor Against War (USLAW) at a meeting at Melbourne Trade on 12 March. Riki Lane summarises her speech.
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Iraq unions unite to fight oil privatisation
Submitted on 30 September, 2007 - 16:06
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.
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Defend Iraqi unions!
Submitted on 11 September, 2007 - 14:17
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.
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Iraqi workers win tactical victory
Submitted on 28 June, 2007 - 11:54
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....”
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US Iraq plan in chaos, but Islamists offer no answer
Submitted on 24 June, 2007 - 23:52
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 rail workers strike
Submitted on 22 May, 2007 - 13:00
Iraqi railway workers have begun an indefinite strike to win a pay rise and basic rights.
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Appeal from Iraqi workers’ leader
Submitted on 7 April, 2007 - 10:14
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.
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The “reactionary anti-imperialists”
Submitted on 2 April, 2007 - 15:45
“Reactionary socialism… half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto
Iraq Union Solidarity - Scotland
Submitted on 5 March, 2007 - 09:34
Campaigners in Scotland building support and solidarity with trade unions in Iraq.
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- Visit Iraq Union Solidarity - Scotland
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US and Iraqi forces raid Iraqi union office
Submitted on 1 March, 2007 - 12:17
US and Iraqi government forces have once again raided the office of Iraq's largest trade union federation.
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Support Iraqi workers and women!
Submitted on 23 February, 2007 - 18:45
Text of the AWL leaflet for the 24 February anti-war demonstration, London.
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Sectarian militias kill more trade unionists in Iraq
Submitted on 20 January, 2007 - 10:56
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.
- PaulHampton's blog
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Iraqi labour movement opposes new oil law
Submitted on 8 January, 2007 - 07:43
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:
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More strikes as Iraq spins into abyss
Submitted on 22 October, 2006 - 16:33
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.
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Iraqi workers fight back
Submitted on 6 October, 2006 - 11:21
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.
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Iraq: US/UK occupation creates “wasteland” - Down with the “resistance”! Up with the workers!
Submitted on 10 September, 2006 - 12:37
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.
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“There is no state, no law”
Submitted on 13 August, 2006 - 16:09
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.
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PUK attacks striking workers
Submitted on 13 August, 2006 - 16:07
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.
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Kurdish nationalists attack striking workers
Submitted on 28 July, 2006 - 15:01
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.
Iraqi oil workers plan strike against sectarian war
Submitted on 16 July, 2006 - 10:34
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”.
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Solidarity activists plan Iraqi trade unionists’ tour
Submitted on 16 July, 2006 - 10:11
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.
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Iraq Union Solidarity Conference
Submitted on 27 June, 2006 - 19:42
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.
- Janine's blog
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Union funds frozen
Submitted on 24 June, 2006 - 12:33
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.
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Iraq labour movement film showing - Tuesday 6th June, 19:30...
Submitted on 4 June, 2006 - 01:27
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
- David Broder's blog
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Help Iraqi workers’ voice get heard!
Submitted on 25 March, 2006 - 15:09
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.
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What we do
Submitted on 25 March, 2006 - 13:07
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”.
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Iraq lurches towards civil war: Support the Iraqi labour movement!
Submitted on 11 March, 2006 - 14:37
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.
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What we do
Submitted on 11 March, 2006 - 13:30
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.
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The real struggle for liberation in Iraq
Submitted on 15 January, 2006 - 11:30
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.
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