Iraqi Government Freezes Oil Workers Union Bank Accounts: USLAW calls for solidarity actions by U.S. labor movement.
The Iraqi regime has frozen all the bank accounts of the Iraqi oil workers' union, both abroad and within Iraq.
The decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers' union, freezing the writers' union accounts and the September, 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law to 'regulate' trade union organizations and their activities.
This action follows in the footsteps of US administrator Paul Bremer. In 2004 the occupation's then pro-consul in Iraq declared trade union activity in the state (public) sector illegal by continuing to enforce Saddam Hussein's 1987 decree banning workers' unions in the state sector by declaring public employees to be 'civil servants' rather than 'workers'.
From Day One of the occupation, the U.S. has aimed to put Iraq's vast oil resources in the hands of multinational energy corporations, if not through direct privatization (the preferred route) then through Production Sharing Agreements. The oil workers' union is one of the most effective opponents of this policy, organizing an anti-privatization conference last year and another one to come this year. In October, 2003, union activists forced KBR out of oil industry workplaces. KBR had been given a no-bid contract to get the oil industry back into production after the invasion.
The General Union of Oil Employees represents 23,000 oil industry workers in Iraq. It is independent of any political party or sectarian group. It is an affiliate of the Iraq Freedom Congress. Its President Hassan Juma'a was among the Iraqi labor leaders who toured the U.S. last June at the invitation of U.S. Labor Against the War.
Here's what you can do now:
info@uslaboragainstwar.org
USLAW asks unions, labor councils, state federations and labor and other social justice activists across the U.S. to protest the Iraqi regime's interference with and harassment of the GUOE and other unions that are fighting to defend the rights of Iraqi workers in their workplaces and the interests of Iraq's working people in society. Demand that the GUOE bank accounts be unfrozen, that Saddam Hussein's Law 150 be repealed and that labor rights be immediately recognized and fully respected in Iraq in accordance with internationally accepted ILO standards.
Send your protests to:
Jalal Talabani, President
Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister
Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, Parliament Speaker
Jawad Bulani, Minister of the Interior
c/o Embassy of the Republic of Iraq
1801 P St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036 or
Fax: (202) 462-5066 or admin@iraqiembassy.org
With copies to:
Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary
U.S. State Department
2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-647-5733
Kindly provide USLAW with a copy which we will pass on to the GUOE in Iraq.
U.S. LABOR AGAINST THE WAR. 1718 M Street, NW, PMB 153, Washington, DC 20036. www.uslaboragainstwar.org; info@uslaboragainstwar.org.
