Solidarity with Iraqi workers
At the end of 2004 and beginning of 2005 there was a strike wave in Iraq, which affected many sectors of industry. The fledgling labour movement is beginning to raise its head. But it is still organisationally weak. It faces many dangers, both from the US/UK occupation which keeps Saddam’s labour laws on the books, and from the Islamist and neo-Ba’thist “resistance” gangs, which have killed and kidnapped trade unionists. Despite the urgent need for solidarity, it was only after a lot of dawdling and fumbling that the British labour movement began to organise for the Iraqi workers. The biggest...