Greetings comrades:
I would like to congratulate you for your annual meeting and thank you for inviting me.
Comrades. I would like to start my talk with a greeting message sent to you by my comrade Falah Alwan, the leader of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq.
Dear comrades of No Sweat campaign
On behalf of Federation of workers Councils and Unions in Iraq I would like to send our warmest greetings from Iraq to your annual conference in London.
I would also like to use this opportunity to thank you for your support and solidarity with us in the past year, in particular for your support to our conference in Basra.
The successful conclusion of our conference in Basra, under the current circumstances, has proved to be a great success for the working class struggle in Iraq. It is worth mentioning that it would have been a great more difficult without the international support and solidarity from organizations like yours.
Once again thank you and wish you all the best and success in your campaigns to defend the workers across the world.
In solidarity
Falah Alwan
President of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq
30.11.2004
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To speak about the miseries and hardships that the workers in Iraq had suffered in the past is a long story. There is no doubt about the brutality of the Ba’ath regime during the last three decades in dividing the workers and suppressing their struggles.
Independent unions were not allowed to exist and official ones were a means in the hands of the regime to implement the Ba’ath regime’s anti-workers policies. But what is happening now under the new rule of both America and its installed puppet regime, the so called interim government, is not any better than what happened under the previous regime.
Certainly neither the USA nor its puppets want to see independent workers unions and organizations. But the workers in Iraq from the first days of the collapse of the Saddam’s regime and the occupation of Iraq have started organizing themselves in unions and workers councils. We have been trying to organize the working class up and down the country, clear of the Ba’athist members and so called leaders, with a new vision for equality and freedom in Iraq. Amongst the new wave of workers organizations are the Union of Unemployed, Federation of Workers Councils and a number of recent unions in Iraq that were established in and around May 2003 to defend the rights of unemployed workers and unionize the workers to defend their rights. These workers’ organization are certainly formed by the workers themselves and act as a tool in the hands of workers to achieve their goals and not merely a tool in the hands of the capitalist regimes to impose their laws on workers.
Our unions have had tremendous progress since their foundation. They have courageously stood against occupation and holding the occupying forces to account for the starvation, poverty and the widespread unemployment in Iraq.
It was in August 2003 when the Union of Unemployed in Iraq (UUI) decided to stage a 45 day sit-in in front of the coalition forces provisional authority’s office in Iraq to demand jobs or unemployment benefit. The US forces response was to arrest the leaders of this movement in an attempt to contain this huge force of the working class in Iraq.
So far around 14 major demonstrations have been organized by our unions in Baghdad and other cities of Iraq.
As you know the situation in Iraq is turbulent. There is the ongoing occupation of Iraq. Civilians are getting killed and terrorized by US forces as well as the armed Islamic gangs and the dramatic rise of the armed forces belonging to the political Islamic forces in Iraq who have now turned our society into a battle field.
This turmoil has lead to a situation where female workers can not go out to work without fully observing Islamic veil. Those daring to disobey them will get kidnapped by different local gangsters due to lack of security. The issue of security and lack of protection of citizens in Iraq have lead to chaos which had made the job of labour activist and organizers very difficult indeed.
The Islamists are using the occupation as an excuse to terrorize Iraqi people. They blow up cinemas, video and DVD shops, shops selling alcoholic drinks. Women using hairdressing salon will have their hair cut in public in an effort to exert fear and shame on them.
They kill women who go to work without veil and threaten to kill girls who go to university without veil. So far over 1000 female students have withdrawn from university as they do not want to be killed for not wearing veil. All these are done in the name of “resistance”. If they want to fight the occupiers why do they kill and behead Iraqi people, or foreign workers who are the victim of occupation.
Looking at all this chaos and in the absence of minimum security the activism of women in the workers movement has been made even harder. But we have shown them way that the real resistance is the resistance of workers and women for freedom, humanity, egalitarianism, and secularism not Islamism and killings and bombings of innocent civilians. We are telling people that we want an end to occupation and we are fighting for a secular and egalitarian state and not a reactionary religious state.
Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq has been organizing women to fight for equality and women’s rights and is known in the world for its non compromising stands in defense of women and exposing Islamists for their brutalities against women in Iraq.
We have been spearheading the struggles to empower women to get involved in the unions and the recent example of the Basra conference in which a female worker, Kefah, was elected with an absolute majority votes among 200 delegates to head the workers councils in Basra.
It is the task of workers and women in Iraq to end occupation of Iraq and establish a state whereby people are treated equally and not on the bases of gender, ethnic, religious or tribal backgrounds. The achievements of our unions have been great but it is still fragile as the threats of the Interim government and USA is still hanging over our heads. Our progress and even existence will be in jeopardy in the absence of a strong International solidarity. As you appreciated a great deal more needs to be done and we are looking forward to your continuous support.
Once again I would like to thank you for your support and solidarity with us and thank you all for listening.
Thanks
Houzan Mahmoud
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