Pic: Unemployed medical graduates in Sulaimaniyah, from Facebook
Since 1991, the labour movement in Iraqi Kurdistan has faced significant obstacles. After Kurdistan was liberated from the grip of Saddam Hussein's regime, it fell under an authority divided between two nationalist parties: the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). These two parties linked themselves to American war policies, pulling state institutions into a deep political and economic vortex. However, for a short period, workers and the revolting masses formed independent councils in which they demanded better conditions, equal wages, an 8-hour workday, and the removal of directors from the Ba'athist era. These councils were quickly suppressed by nationalist militias, and the civil war between the KDP and PUK led to further societal fragmentation and the weakening of worker unity.
After 2003 and the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Kurdistan Region was linked to Iraq under a federal system established on nationalist and sectarian foundations, while labour laws from the Ba'athist era continued to restrict workers' rights. Despite a succession of new governments in Iraq, the working class suffers from instability, war, and the closure of factories. Economic openness brought with it significant capital, but due to weak economic infrastructure, most wealth accumulated in the hands of the ruling parties. In this context, construction, trade, and oil became the primary economic sectors, linking the Kurdistan labor market to regional economies. Today, the working class has expanded significantly, with workers making up an estimated 60-65% of job seekers.
Workers are deprived of their most basic rights under the laws of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), where they suffer under the slavery of wage labor, dependency on capital, and the division of labor imposed on society. Furthermore, they must wait for the rules of blind capitalist competition and the "mercy" of employers to secure their livelihood and survive. Even when authorities amend laws, they do not treat workers as a single class; instead, they divide them into different categories to scatter them and prevent them from uniting and organizing.
Over the past thirty years, successive governments and parliaments have issued hundreds of laws and regulations, but only two of them relate directly to workers: the Investment Law and the amendment to the Social Security Law. The legal source for the Regional Government regarding workers is either the laws of the Iraqi Federal Government or the decisions of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The current law is based on the Ba'athist regime's Labor Law (No. 71 of 1987). As for the Investment Law issued by the Regional Government concerning workers, it does not recognize any role for workers; rather, its primary goal is to encourage foreign and local companies and capitalists to employ workers without restrictions or conditions.
Working Hours and Holidays:
In the public sector, working hours are set at 8 hours, with Friday and Saturday as holidays. However, in the private and non-governmental sectors, working hours are 10 hours, and holidays are not fixed. Employers and companies are the ones who decide the working hours and rest days. Designating Friday as a holiday stems from Islamic traditions. May 1st (International Workers' Day) is not recognized as an official holiday.
Guarantees:
There is no unemployment insurance, housing insurance, healthcare, transportation, or education support. Workers do not enjoy housing rights, and healthcare and medicine are not within their reach. Even education for the children of workers comes at the same high cost.
Worker Safety:
Workplace accidents in Kurdistan: In the year 2025 alone, 77 workers died due to work-related accidents. These accidents occurred in the sectors of private companies, construction, roads, and electricity. This proves that workplace accidents have turned workplaces into a battlefield, leading to an increasing number of victims as the private sector grows.
Freedom of Organization:
Although the Constitution of the Kurdistan Region stipulates freedom of organization, this freedom is denied to workers. Only unions affiliated with the authorities are allowed to operate, and workers do not wish to deal with them as bodies that represent them. These unions were established by the parties of the Kurdistan Front after the uprising as part of building partisan authority over the workers. Workers have no control over these unions, and even their leaders are not workers. Since then and until now, they have not held any conference or seminar, and workers have no role in them.
Furthermore, workers in any workplace, public or private, are not allowed to establish their own organizations. Not only that, but if they do so, they are accused of causing trouble and face dismissal or transfer to other locations.
Migrant Workers and the Conflict between Employers and Workers coming from Iran, Turkey, Southern Iraq, Nepal, the Philippines, China, Korea, and Bangladesh:
Foreign workers are classified into two groups:
• The First Group: Those who came to Iraq legally through government contracts and foreign companies. They work under the same labour conditions as their home countries. Fortunately for them, they have not been affected by the laws and decisions of the Regional Government and enjoy a somewhat better life. Nevertheless, differences in wages and some other distinctions have been used as a pretext for discrimination between them and other workers.
• The Second Group: Those who work illegally in Kurdistan and have fled difficult economic and security situations. These are the poorest workers in Kurdistan. They face the slavery of capital and the market. They are constantly worried about deportation and the fines imposed by security forces. This is not to mention being deprived of wages, dismissal, the absence of any rights or freedoms, and being viewed as strangers. Many of them suffer from long working hours, low wages, sexual harassment, and overtime (without pay).
Thus, the Kurdish bourgeois class, through its militia and mafia-like government, has imposed harsh working and living conditions on the workers and the deprived and labouring masses in Kurdistan. Even some rights enjoyed by workers in other countries are denied to the workers of Kurdistan, and this is considered legitimate by the government, employers, and companies. They suffer from extreme poverty and unemployment, low wages, wage deductions, and the non-payment of entitlements and salaries for several months. They also suffer from the absence of social security and unemployment insurance, the lack of any government support for tenants, the absence of health and civil services, and people’s suffering from crises in gas, fuel, power outages, drinking water, and safe roads. This extends to depriving Kurdistan's workers of any right to freedom of organization, striking, and protesting, and the readiness of employers and companies to violate all worker rights and freedoms and treat them as slaves without rights, alongside the suppression of any protest by the gunmen of the Kurdish nationalist bourgeois government. All of these are aspects of the life and livelihood of workers and labourers in Kurdistan.
However, the working class and the labouring masses, despite all the obstacles, pressure, and repression by the bourgeoisie and the nationalist authority, have not stopped defending their lives, livelihoods, future, rights, and freedoms. They have confronted the authority and employers and companies in various ways. They have organized public gatherings, strikes, and demonstrations and expressed their protests. On this path, they have made sacrifices, had their livelihoods cut off, and were fired upon. The working class in Kurdistan is beginning, step by step, to find its rightful place in the class struggle in Kurdistan. Labor movements are a first step toward beginning this class struggle, which has suffered from weakness for years due to the national question and nationalist injustice and discrimination, and under the dominance of the ideas and policies of the Kurdish nationalist bourgeoisie.
The Israeli American war on Iran has a harsh and direct negative effect on the lives of the masses of Kurdistan.
With the war, the situation has been mixed with fear, instability, displacement, homelessness, and despair. The lives and livelihoods of the masses, especially women and labourers, have been placed under threat and insecurity. At the same time, the greedy in the markets have taken advantage of the crisis, raising the prices of food, basic necessities, medicine, and even vegetables, which has increased the suffering of the people.
From the perspective of the working class, this war has caused great difficulties represented by the rise in the prices of goods and energy, making the living conditions of workers difficult, as their salaries no longer maintain their previous value. At the same time, due to the crisis, capitalists have begun reducing the number of workers, increasing working hours, lowering wages, and cancelling their rights. The voice of worker protest is silenced with the message that any demand they make "harms the homeland," and this leads to silencing and dispersing them.
In the Kurdistan Region, the impact of war and political instability has created a very dangerous situation. The labour market has collapsed, and a large army of young people has remained unemployed, ready to work for very low wages and long hours. This has enabled companies and workplaces to snatch away workers' rights to achieve capitalist profits.
At the same time, instead of employing youth in their fields of specialization, many are forced to carry weapons and join security forces, which means transferring their power from production to military actions. This in itself is a plundering of the workforce and a destruction of youth creativity. War creates an unnatural atmosphere in which labour law dies, and the voice of worker protest is silenced under the pretext of an "abnormal situation" or "lack of agreement with Baghdad."
In the end, this situation creates a golden opportunity for the rulers to silence workers and describe any demand of theirs as a "breach of security." This deals a long-term blow to workers' rights, the unity of the working class, and the liberatory atmosphere in the region, driving the workforce into a state of despair and fragmentation. For the workers of Kurdistan—amidst the difficulty of work, the absence of a genuine labour organization, the repercussions of war, and the dangerous situation in the region, Iraq, and Kurdistan, where the working class and the labouring masses are the first victims—there remains only one option: to stand in the face of war, the atmosphere of war, and its harmful consequences. The workers of Kurdistan and all labour, communist, liberatory, and humanitarian forces and parties must stand against the war and its consequences of hunger, high prices, displacement, and social instability.
April 30, 2026
Comments?We welcome replies, corrections and debate pieces. Contact us