Public Employee Press

Iraqi unions seek help from U.S. labor

Five union leaders from war-torn Iraq spoke at union meetings in Washington and New York in September and addressed the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh about the basic labor rights they are denied in their country, where the United States still has powerful military forces and great influence over the government.

“Workers are not allowed to organize their movement in a free way,” said Hassan Juma’a, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions.

“We are under a military occupation and all we have gained is a divided society with thousands of victims,” said Falah Alwan, president of Iraq’s Federation of Workers Councils. “Workers are prevented from improving their lives and the effort to privatize oil continues.”

In 2003 and 2004, workers were able to hold off attempts to put oil — Iraq’s most important national resource — into the private hands of international oil companies, but the plan to is still on the table. On July 17, government leaders pledged to shield oil firms from “union threats,” meaning strikes and sit-ins in opposition to privatization.

Leaders of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers and two Kurdish union groups presented examples of Iraq’s repression of collective activity, such as the ban on a rally by grocery workers who were about to lose their jobs.

The AFL-CIO convention delegates adopted a resolution supporting Iraqi workers’ right of free association and calling for the nation to end its repression of unions, leaders and activists, to release frozen and impounded union funds and to allow Iraqi unions to operate normally.

New AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka wrote Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Oct. 27 protesting official interference in union affairs, such as the current government attempt to get control of the unions. Interference in union elections violates the most fundamental principle of freedom of association, wrote Trumka.

U.S. Labor Against the War, SUNY Stony Brook’s Center for the Study of Working Class Life, Iraqi Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out and 1199SEIU sponsored the tour. For more information on Iraqi unions, conditions of Iraqi workers, and additional efforts to organize support for them, visit www.uslaboragainstwar.org.