Workers' Liberty

According to WW4 Report:

Basra's oil pipeline workers, who had been staging occupations of the facilities since April 27 to demand back pay, scored a victory [in May] as the Baghdad administration agreed to meet with their leaders and negotiate a payment schedule.

By Ruth Cashman (Unison activist and participant in the March labour movement conference in Iraqi Kurdistan)

The Iraqi Teachers’ Union is facing a vicious attack from the Iraqi Government. The Iraqi government has demanded that the leadership of the union hand over the keys to its headquarters, along with membership and other records, to a state body.

According to US Labor Against the War, the revival of Iraq’s labour movement first marked by the protests on government workers’ pay in August 2008 is continuing.

A new spate of suicide bombings in Iraq could signal a new descent into sectarian civil war. The suicide bombings followed clashes between Iraqi government troops — aided by US forces — and groups from the Awakening Councils (Sahwa), a Sunni-Arab movement.

The RMT rail union has called a protest outside the Israeli embassy in London on 11 May to support Arab workers threatened with the sack from Israeli railways. More details here.

The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees has called a protest on 16-17 April in Geneva about the plight of Iraqi refugees.

Over 500 members of the Iraqi Teachers' Union demonstrated in Baghdad on Friday 28 March against an attempt by the Iraqi government to take over the union.

A whole neighbourhood in Baghdad, Fadhil, is under siege by Iraqi government and US troops.

Ruth Cashman reports on the first international labour conference ever held in Iraq, which she attended in Erbil on 13-14 March.

On 27 February new US president Barack Obama announced his detailed plans for Iraq.

Small reductions in US troop levels have already started. After them the US military presence will remain large — 120,000-plus — until after the Iraqi elections scheduled for December 2009.

Then faster withdrawal is planned, and “combat” operations are due to end by 31 August 2010.

Iraq’s provincial elections on 1 February confirmed the picture that the Maliki government is gaining strength, though also the fact that the foundations of that strength are fragile.

Ben Lando of United Press International and Iraq Oil Report has written this report on the upcoming international labour conference called by Iraqi trade unionists and to be held in Erbil, Iraq, on 13-14 March.

The attached broadsheet gives information on the March 2009 international labour conference, called by Iraqi trade unionists to take place in Iraq, and recent workers' struggles in Iraq. Download as pdf (see "attachment").

Samir Adil, an organiser of the International Labour Conference to be held in February 2009 in Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, has escaped with minor injuries from a suicide-bomber attack on a restaurant in Kirkuk where he was eating.

The deal with the USA approved by the Iraqi parliament at the end of November is entitled "Agreement On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq".

Top people in the Iraqi government are saying that the deal which Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has negotiated with the USA for US troops to remain in Iraq after their UN mandate runs out on 31 December now probably won’t be approved.

IRAQ: A leading gay activist in Iraq has been assassinated.
Last month, 27 year old Bashar the coordinator of Iraqi LGBT in Baghdad and a university student, was assassinated in a barber shop.

On 13 October the Iraqi government, at a meeting in London with bosses of 34 international oil companies, opened an auction for 20-year contracts to develop big swathes of Iraqi oil and gas fields.

Review of Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Acrassicaduda (Latin for black scorpion) is a heavy metal band in the world’s most “heavy metal city” — Baghdad. After writing about them in US counter culture magazine Vice in 2003, two metal head journos make the ultimate groupie pilgrimage to the world’s most dangerous city to track down the young Iraqis who make up the band.

According to US Labor Against the War and the Iraqi Freedom Congress, a flurry of strikes and demonstrations has scored one of the most important victories for Iraqi workers since 2003, and put the question of a proper labour law on the agenda.

Aso Kamal of the Worker-communist Party of Kurdistan spoke to Martin Thomas from Solidarity.

According to US Labor Against the War and the Iraqi Freedom Congress, a flurry of strikes and demonstrations has scored one of the most important victories for Iraqi workers since 2003.

"A People's History of Iraq", by Ilario Salucci. Haymarket Books 2005

This book is an odd patchwork, and misleadingly titled (it is not at all a general history of Iraq), but contains some useful stuff.

Responding to Sean Matgamna’s dicussion piece in Solidarity 3/136, “What if Israel bombs Iran”.

Nadia Mahmood of the Worker-communist Party of Iraq discussed current developments in Iraq with Martin Thomas from Solidarity

The USA's attempt to get a "State of Forces Agreement" that would give the US military open-ended powers as a virtual parallel government in Iraq has failed. Negotiations between the USA and the Iraqi government are now around formulas which call for US troops to be out of Iraq's cities by June next year - there are currently 16,000 within Baghdad, for example - and all US combat forces to be out of Iraq by 2011.

According to the International Herald Tribune, the US government has agreed a schedule to withdraw troops from Iraq.