Judge attacks deportation tactics (from BBC News)

A Home Office practice of deporting failed asylum seekers "at about midnight in the middle of the weekend" has been condemned by a senior judge.
The government was also criticised for putting deportees onto flights to their home countries at short notice.

This caused costly emergency late-night applications to High Court judges for injunctions, said Mr Justice Collins.

A Home Office spokesman said they always consulted the courts in "any reviews of our practices".

Sitting at the High Court in London, Mr Justice Collins said: "Frankly the court has got a little fed up with how the Home Office is putting these removals into practice."

'Not good enough'

His comments came as Home Office investigators continued to search for an Iraqi Kurd, who was unlawfully deported to Iraq, to bring him back to the UK.

Justice Collins questioned why it was necessary to remove people "about midnight in the middle of the weekend".

"It is not good enough," he said.

The judge called for talks between the judiciary and the Home Office so that "sensible arrangements" could be made.

We note the comments made by Justice Collins

Home Office spokesman

He had been told how the 29-year-old Iraqi man - referred to as "Mr A" - had been forced on to a plane at Stansted Airport shortly after midnight on Sunday 20 November.

Mr A had not been given removal directions in time for him to consult lawyers.

The government said they had not been handed to him because he was considered to be at risk of self-harm or suicide.

Counsel for Home Secretary Charles Clarke said "a regrettable mistake" had been made.

The deported man was among a group of 15 Iraqi Kurds flown to Iraq after the country was declared safe for their return.

An earlier attempt to fly out returnees ended in failure in August after legal challenges were mounted.

A Home Office spokesman said: "We note the comments made by Justice Collins at today's hearing.

"He accepted that if we had adhered to our normal practice in this case there would have been no issue.

"We will consult with the courts as we always do in relation to any review of our practices."

Join us in demanding the release of our activists from the capture of an armed gang in Iraq

Dear Friends

On December 10, an armed gang has attacked our office in Baghdad and kidnapped two of our political and human rights activists; Akram Faleh Khattab and Basim Ghamees. It is obvious that this gang belongs to the forces of Political Islam. Political Islam has a horrendous track record of violence, killings, beheadings, kidnappings, threats to human rights activists, and abduction of journalists and political activists.

The crime of Faleh Akram Khattab and Basim Ghamees in the eyes of such gangs is the defense of human rights from the violations of the militias and forces currently prevailing in Iraq. The two comrades were brave defenders of civility, equality, political freedom and secularism and they stood firmly by the oppressed. Our two comrades were interested in workers’ issues and adopted their demands and prevented their exploitation. Our two comrades are socialists.

The attack on our two activists and their abduction is not another act of terrorism that average citizens of Iraq are facing daily by the different gangs due to destruction of civil society and lack of security. Although happens within the same environment of insecurity, this attack is in fact political terrorism and bears the fingerprints of the Islamic movement which is opposed to secularists, human rights activists and socialists. Our comrades had previously been threatened by the same group.

We call upon you to support these two individuals and show your solidarity with them. We would like to invite you to join us in our campaign to release them immediately. We would also seize the opportunity to draw the attention to the serious human crisis of the Iraqi society which was caused by the US war and the turning loose of the dark anti-human forces in the society.

We call upon you to denounce the abduction of our comrades and adopt their case and join our efforts to release them from their captures and their safe return to their families and children. We also encourage you to run your own campaigns to defend the lives of these people and get their case across to the widest circles possible within your reach.

Your voices will definitely make a difference. Through our joint efforts we can stop further degradation of the human dignity and sanctity. Together we can make the world a better one.

Sincerely Yours,





Issam Shukri

For the Executive Committee of the Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq – LWPI

14-12-2005

Petition to release the CPT team in Iraq

Please click hereto sign a petiton calling for the release of the CPT team in Iraq.

Vote for OWFI (from John Pearson, SADP)

Vote for OWFI!
Comrades who were present at the SADP members' meeting in November 2004, when we were addressed by comrade Burhan Fatah of the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, will recall that one of the Iraqi organisations that
Burhan called for support for was the Organisation for Women's Freedom
in Iraq (OWFI), which is fighting to defend and advance women's rights
in the aftermath of the fall of the Ba'athist regime, the war and the
growth of Islamic fundamentalism.

OFWI receives support from the Netherlands based women's projects
funder, Mama Cash, and is a nominee for the "She Changes the World Award
2006". Comrades wishing to support OWFI can do so by visiting the site,
from where you can cast your vote :-
http://www.mamacash.nl/site/en/news/campaign88/award.php

In comradeship,
John

Disunity threatens Iraqi labour's resistance to occupation

BASRA, IRAQ (04/11/05) - The cracking towers and gas flares of the al-Daura oil refinery rise above the neighborhood on Baghdad's outskirts that bears its name.

On February 18, Ali Hassan Abd (Abu Fahad), a leader of the refinery's union, was walking home from work with his young children, when gunmen ran up and shot him. Abu Fahad had been one of 400 union activists who emerged from the underground or returned from exile in May 2003, and at a Baghdad conference formed the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions. Afterwards, he went back to the refinery and urged his fellow workers to elect department and plant-wide committees. That, in turn, became a nucleus of the Oil and Gas Workers Union, one of the twelve industry unions that make up the IFTU.
Less than a week after Fahad was killed, on February 24, armed men gunned down Ahmed Adris Abbas in Baghdad's Martyrs' Square. Adris Abbas was an activist in the Transport and Communications Union, another IFTU affiliate. The murder of the two followed the torture and assassination of Hadi Saleh, the IFTU's international secretary, in Baghdad on January 4. Moaid Hamed, general secretary of the IFTU's Mosul branch, was kidnapped in mid-February, as was Talib Khadim Al Tayee, president of the metal and print workers union. Both were later released.
The targeting of trade unionists is a particularly alarming feature of life in occupied Iraq. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, "the torture and murder of labour leaders in Iraq has become a troubling trend in a country where trade unionists still operate under anti-union legislation which dates back to the Saddam era." Despite these assassinations and the deterioration in security, however, the effort by Iraqi unions to win legal status and recognition has grown stronger over the past year. From the increasing power of the oil workers in the south to the campaigns in factories in Baghdad and the north, Iraqi workers continue to organize unions and strikes in the face of attacks from the insurgency on the one hand, and by the occupation forces on the other.
At the same time, the political jockeying produced first by the January elections and then by the referendum on the proposed Constitution have had an impact in unions. As new political coalitions are being formed, some unions hope to parlay political connections into government recognition for their legitimacy. The debate over federalism - the relative power Iraq's central government should have in relation to that of the Shiite region in the south and the Kurdish region in the north - is reverberating through Iraq's labor movement, leading to a new source of division.
Iraq is growing more dangerous for labor and civil society activists. Even the southern region around Basra, which was relatively free from bombing attacks for the first two years of the occupation, is suffering from rising violence. Hassan Juma'a, head of the General Union of Oil Employees at Iraq's huge oil installations in the south, predicts that "an attack on myself will take place, but I'm not afraid. I expect the terrorists will strike everywhere." Juma'a, like most Iraqi unionists, attributes the January murder of Hadi Saleh and other leaders to remnants of Saddam's secret police, the old Mukhabharat. "They seem to be able to operate freely," he says.
The Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI) reports that it recently discovered a plot to bribe relatives of its leaders in Basra, and to eventually kidnap and kill them. Harry Barnes, a left-wing Labour Party Member of Parliament in the UK who maintains with close ties to Iraqi unions, charges that "the so-called resistance is deliberately targeting leaders of the Iraqi labor movement in order to prevent the growth of a new civil society in Iraq."
IFTU leaders are being singled out in the broader context of anti-union violence, in part a probable response to the union's position on the January elections and subsequent political process, one of the issues on which Iraqi unions disagree. "The IFTU supports democratic principles," explains Ghasib Hassan, head of the IFTU's Railway and Aviation Union, "and one of those principles is elections. So we supported them. The IFTU wants to see a democratically elected and accountable government, mandated by the people, so we can raise our legitimate questions and concerns ... This election was also a way of facing head-on those extremists and anti-democratic forces who don't want to see Iraq a democratic and secure state."
Iraq's other unions are more dubious about the current political process. The FWCUI condemned participation in last January's elections. "We called on workers to boycott these elections, because people were divided according to their ethnicity, language and religion," explains Falah Alwan, the federation's president. "Its purpose was to impose the American project on Iraq, and give legitimacy to the government imposed by the Americans and the occupying coalition. The same parties we saw in the old Governing Council will remain in power, and the political balance will remain the same." The union was similarly critical of the constitutional referendum, calling it "another episode of the US scenario in Iraq." The oil workers union took no official position on the January elections, but its leaders estimate that most members voted for the party slate headed by the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which now governs the country.
Iraqi unions do agree, however, on other broad political issues, particularly the occupation itself, which they regard, as Ghasib Hassan puts it, as "brutal." The IFTU, like other Iraqi labor federations, has close relations with a set of political parties, in its case the Iraqi Communist Party (with two ministers in the current government), the party of former Prime Minister Issad al Allawi, and a party of Arab nationalists. IFTU activists say they opposed the occupation before the war, but were forced to deal with it once it began. They call for using UN Resolution 1545 as the basis for insisting that the United States leave once an elected government holds office.
"The war has resulted in extreme destruction in our country," Hassan says. "This is not liberation. It is occupation, and we oppose it absolutely. At the beginning of the 21st century, we thought we'd seen the end of colonies, but now we're entering a new era of colonialization."
The FWCUI is affiliated with the Workers' Communist Party of Iraq, which has taken a much more distant attitude toward the occupation authorities. Alwan says UN forces should replace U.S. troops. "We call for a congress of liberation, including all the powers in Iraq, to end the occupation and rebuild civil society," he explains. The General Union of Oil Employees wants the troops to leave right away. After surveying its members, "almost everyone [told us] they want the occupation to end immediately, and the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq," says Juma'a. In August he emphasized that the GUOE "demands the immediate departure of the occupation forces from the country, because we are capable of administering the state as Iraqis,
whatever the consequences ... The current divisions are caused by the occupation."
Following a June tour of the United States organized by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW), the three unions agreed on a statement. It was the first time Iraq's major unions have developed a common position on the two key issues that confront them - the occupation and privatization. "The occupation must end in all its forms, including military bases and economic domination," the statement said. "The war was fought for oil and regional domination, in violation of international law, justified by lies and deception, without consultation with the Iraqi people. The occupation has been a catastrophe for both our peoples."
The statement condemned the occupation's economic program. "The national wealth and resources of Iraq belong to the Iraqi people," it emphasized. "We are united in our opposition to the imposition of privatization of the Iraqi economy by the occupation, the IMF [International Monetary Fund], the World Bank, foreign powers and any force that takes away the right of the Iraqi people to determine their own economic future."
There are many reasons why workers and unions hate the occupation. Iraqi unemployment, according to the economics faculty of Baghdad University, has been at 70 percent since the occupation started. Among U.S. occupation czar Paul Bremer's extreme free-market-oriented orders was number 30, issued in September 2003 and still in force. It lowered the base wage in public enterprises (where most permanently-employed Iraqis work) to $35/month, and ended subsidies for food and housing. Most of all, workers hate Law 150, issued by Saddam Hussein in 1987, which prohibited unions and collective bargaining in the public sector. Bremer chose to continue enforcing this measure, and bound the transitional governments which followed him to do the same. Bremer backed up the edict by issuing Public Order 1, banning even advocacy leading to civil disorder. He arrested IFTU leaders, expelling them from their Baghdad offices. He also put down some of the first street protests in Baghdad, organized by the Union of Unemployed of Iraq (part of the FWCUI) and arrested the union's head, Qasim Hadi, many times.
Iraqi unions see these moves as a way to soften up workers to ensure they don't resist the privatization of the country's economy. Interviewed at the Al-Doura refinery in October 2003, manager Dathar Al-Kashab predicted that in the event of privatization, "I'd have to fire 1500 [of the refinery's 3000] workers. In America when a company lays people off, there's unemployment insurance, and they won't die from hunger. If I dismiss employees now, I'm killing them and their families."
Privatization defies the tradition of social solidarity in Iraq, which favors using oil revenues to industrialize the country, creating a public sector that can put people to work and ensure a self-sustaining national economy. Hassan Juma'a says workers at the Southern Oil Company began organizing their union as the troops were entering Basra because of "our fear that the purpose of the occupation was the oil, that they've come to take control of the oil industry. Without organizing ourselves, we would be unable to protect our industry." In May, the GUOE organized a conference in Basra opposing the privatization of the oil industry. The union seeks to initiate a political front in the south to stop the occupation from placing transnational corporations in control of oil resources. The gathering featured presentations by academics at Basra University, speeches by GUOE members and leaders, and participation from the IFTU, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Iraqi Communist Party.
The IFTU also opposes privatization. "Iraqi publicly owned enterprises should stay publicly owned," says Ghasib Hassan. "We will never accept the privatization of oil. It is the only source of wealth we can use to rebuild our country." Alwan and the FCWUI have organized worker committees in a number of Baghdad factories, and opposition to privatization has been a major motivation there also. Interviewed in October 2003, at the Mamoun Vegetable Oil Factory, manager Amir Faraj Bhajet observed that "there's no private person in Iraq with enough money to buy this place. It would have to be a foreign owner. They would like the assets, but would they want the workers?"
Despite facing a hostile occupation with a vested interest in their suppression, and an armed insurgency targeting unions and civil society, Iraq's labor movement has made remarkable progress in organizing workers and challenging free-market policies. This past February, as IFTU leaders were being killed, Baghdad's hotel workers belonging to the federation struck first the Sheraton, and then the next-door Palestine Hotel. Both are luxurious establishments behind high blast walls, housing U.S. journalists and administrators. The IFTU managed to force de facto recognition and bargaining in some workplaces, and now claims 12 national unions, and 200,000 members. Metalworkers at Baghdad's Al Nassr molding and car parts factory won a minimum wage of 150,000 Iraqi dinars (about $100) per month. The Rail Workers Union forced a wage increase at Railways of the Iraqi Republic from 75,000 to 125,000 Iraqi dinars per month, and equal pay for men and women.
In May 2004, Basra's power station workers, a hotbed of union activity, elected the first woman union president in Iraq's history. Hashimia Muhsin Hussein says the Electricity and Energy Workers' Union "will continue to struggle for workers rights' to union representation, social justice and a stable, pluralistic and democratic Iraq." In May, 2005, she threatened to call a strike in the country's power plants if the government didn't stop replacing longtime workers in the state-owned industry with private contractors.
Basra is the scene of Iraqi workers' biggest victory so far. At the Southern Oil Company, the union first took on KBR, a division of Halliburton Corp., which was given a no-bid reconstruction contract to repair oil facilities. In the first months of the occupation, KBR tried to bring in a Kuwaiti contractor, Al Khoraafi, along with workers from outside the country. The newly-reformed oil workers union struck for three days in August, 2003, and forced KBR forced to renounce its plans to take over reconstruction work and replace Iraqi workers. Then the union directly challenged the Bremer wage order. "We managed to get the minimum salary up to 150,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $100," Hassan Juma'a recalls. "This is a beginning of the struggle to improve the income of the oil workers."
Similar fights broke out in the electrical stations around Basra, and Juma'a and the Basra head of the IFTU, Abu Lina, went to the deepwater port of Um Qasr to help dockworkers get organized and begin their own push for better wages. In April, the port workers union, supported by the oil workers and others, blockaded the port of Zubair, and forced out the Danish shipping giant Maersk, which had taken over the terminals at the start of the occupation. In mid-2004, the U.S. multinational Stevedoring Services of America was also forced out of the port of Um Qasr.
While the oil workers and the two Iraqi labor federations are organizationally independent from each other, in the past they have cooperated on the ground in Basra and the south. According to Juma'a, "we're still looking to see which unions, at the end of the day, are the legitimate ones representing the interests of the workers."
That cooperation, however, is becoming much more strained. The IFTU, which has been accused in the past of trying to claim status as Iraq's sole officially-recognized labor federation, entered into a controversial pact with its former Ba'athist adversaries in September. The IFTU's new partners are the General Workers' Federation of Iraq and the General Workers' Federation of the Republic of Iraq, both remnants of the state-sponsored General Federation of Trade Unions under Saddam Hussein. This agreement, brokered by the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, gave the new General Federation of Iraqi Workers the right to represent the country's labor movement internationally (specifically, at the ICATU) "until circumstances allow the holding of general union elections."
The agreement calls for rejection of the occupation as its first point. It is possible, some observers believe, that the IFTU is preparing for the end of the occupation, and seeks to break a "nationalist" element away from the insurgency. Some also speculate that the agreement is evidence of a decline in the influence of the Iraqi Communist Party (historically subjected to bloody repression by the Ba'athists) in the union federation.
In a second controversial move, the IFTU in August made a scathing condemnation of Juma'a and the leadership of the General Union of Oil Employees, saying "it doesn't represent the union work of the petrol sector." The oil workers shut down oil exports for a day in August, 2005, to demand that a greater share of the oil revenue be spent on rebuilding the south. The rift reflects the sharp debate over the country's newly-approved draft constitution and structure. The IFTU's political allies accuse the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq of supporting secession, under the guise of a federalist structure in which Iraq's central government would have little power. They accuse the oil workers of entering an alliance with the governor of Basra province towards that end.
Contradicting this claim, however, the GUOE moved in October to establish an Iraq-wide union for workers in the oil industry. On October 10 it announced "with God's blessing the formation of the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq, with its centre in Basra, composed of unions representing the oil sector in Basra, Meisan, and DhiQar." Iraq's other primary oil fields are located in the north, around Kirkuk, where workers also organized an independent union in the wake of the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. Production from the northern fields, which are older and smaller, has been constricted by attacks by insurgents on oil pipelines. The GUOE and the Kirkuk union have had informal contacts, and the announcement from Basra emphasized that the new federation's doors "are open to all workers in the oil sector throughout Iraq from the
north to the south.." The new federation views itself as "part of the movement of Iraqi labour unions.".
As a result of almost three years of union activity, a high percentage of factories in Iraq have worker-based organizing committees and fledgling unions (probably a greater percentage than factories in the United States). To consolidate this progress, however, Iraqi unions need political unity. Without it, it will be difficult to confront the occupation and defeat its privatization program, which is supported, not just by the US and Britain, but by the many returned exiles who now control Iraqi ministries. That unity is clearly in jeopardy.
Taking advantage of this situation, in August the interim Iraqi government issued Decree 875, revoking the limited rights unions won under the Transitional Law of June, 2004. That law supposedly granted workers the right to organize without state interference. The new decree, however, says the government will "take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies." According to the FWCUI, the decree signals "a continuation of the intervention of the authorities in thee unions' business." The IFTU reacted more strongly, accusing the government of "unjust attacks and clear open interference" intended "to prevent working people from organizing free and democratic unions. Saddam Hussein's anti-union Law 150 is still being applied."
Making the occupation's stance towards unions even clearer, a US military helicopter fired on the headquarters of the IFTU-affiliated Transport and Communications Workers Union in Baghdad's Al-Hilla district on August 15. Twenty-six workers and unionists were wounded and taken to the hospital. Despite their advances, Iraq's unions face greater dangers than at any time since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Campaign against arrest and trial of workers activists in Iran

Borhan Divangar, Mohsen Hakimi and Mohamad Abdipoor have been sentenced!

The Revolutionary Court of the Islamic Republic of Iran has announced the sentences passed on the remaining 3 workers who were arrested following the 2004 May Day commemorations in the city of Saqez. All three, Borhan Divangar, Mohsen Hakimi and Mohamad Abdipoor, were sentenced to two years imprisonment by the regime's courts.

As we had announced earlier, on 9 November 2005, Mahmood Salehi was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment and 3 years exile, and Jalal Hosseini to two years imprisonment.

The court in Saqez passed the above sentences for the "crime" of organising independent May Day commemorations in 2004. Moreover, the case of Borhan Divangar, the Chair of the National Organisation of Unemployed, is still open for the crimes of workers' activities and defence of the rights of children.

Please write letters of protest to the following adresses, and send copies to us.

Your solidarity with Iranian workers in this critical time is very crucial to their struggle.

In Solidarity



Mahmod Kazvini



Please send your protest letters to:

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
the Presidency
Palestine Avenue, Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran
Islamic Republic of Iran
Fax: 98-21-648.06.65 http://www.president.ir/email

Head of the Judiciary

His Excellency Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi

Ministry of Justice, Park-e Shahr, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

Email: irjpr@iranjudiciary.org (mark 'Please forward to HE Ayatollah Shahroudi'

Please send a copy of your protest letters to:



mkazvini@hotmail.com OR houzan73@yahoo.co.uk

GUOE Becomes Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions

Public Announcement

All are aware of the role that Iraqi labour unions have played in the previous and present phrases of Iraq's history as the most important basis of Iraqi society for development and construction. Unions continued with their work until they became the object of a conspiracy on the part of the despotic regime, which stripped them of their rights in 1987. After the dictator fell, on 20/04/2003, that is eleven days after the entry of the occupation forces, activists formed the oil Union, the first nucleus of which was the Southern Oil Company and the other oil companies.

The Union masterfully led the process of building and reconstruction and equipping of the plants and oil installations and the process of improving living conditions and obtaining the rights of its members. The Union has participated in many international conferences and enjoys extensive links with international organisations.

The Union has taken a courageous stand on many sensitive issues related to the capacities of the Iraqi people and has a clear position vis-à-vis the occupying forces. Building on what has gone before and in accordance with present experiences of Iraqis as part of embodying the practice of democracy for the new phase, we announce with God's blessing the formation of the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq, with its centre in Basra, composed of unions representing the oil sector in Basra, Meisan, and DhiQar, as a Federation specialised in all aspects of the oil sector and part of the movement of Iraqi labour unions.

At this moment as we announce the establishment of the Federation, its doors are open to all workers in the oil sector throughout Iraq from the north to the south and we welcome the support of all civil society organisations to this federation which is in the service of the public interest.

God disposes,
The Executive Committee of the Federation of Oil Unions in Iraq Basra
12/10/2005

Iraqi oil union leader to visit Britain

Hassan Jumaa Awad, leader of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, has been invited to the UK for Iraq Occupation Focus' ˜Voices from Occupied Iraq" Teach-In on November 26th and the Stop The War Coalition's International Peace Conference on December 10th. Read his itinerary here.

The Union has stated that ˜The privatisation of the oil and industrial sectors is the objective of all in the Iraqi state/government. We will stand firm against this imperialist plan that would hand over Iraq's wealth to international capitalism such that the deprived Iraqi people would not benefit from it:we are taking this path for the sake of Iraq's glory even if it costs us our lives.

The IFOU is the most powerful trade union in Iraq representing over 23,000 oil workers across 3 provinces in nine state oil and gas companies. It is independent of all current trade union federations in Iraq.

The Union has consistently held a ˜Troops Out Now" policy, calling for an immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces from Iraq. Many of the Union's executive committee were persecuted by the Baath dictatorship. Awad himself was jailed three times by the regime.

The Union has on two separate occasions halted oil exports through strike action over unpaid wages, repressive Baathist managers and officials in the Ministry of Oil and land allocations for employees. It has successfully reconstructed infrastructure, port equipment, drilling rigs and pipelines without the help of foreign companies. It also succeeded in cancelling the last two tiers of the Occupation's Order 30 wage-table and raising the minimum wage for Iraqi oil workers from 69,000 Iraqi Dinar (£20) per month to 102,000 ID (£35) per month. It has also negotiated the return of 1000 foreign workers in favour of the employment of local Iraqi workers.

Ewa Jasiewicz, Co-Convenor of the IFOU Support Committee Naftana (meaning Our Oil) said, ˜Hassan's second visit to the UK is a wake-up call. Iraqi oil has not yet been privatised, and the IFOU are in a position, physically, strategically and historically to make sure that it never will be. This union needs our maximum support.

Notes

The GUOE became the IFOU on October 12th 2005 after the affiliation of further oil unions from Maysan and Dhi Qar provinces. They are currently still in talks with an independent oil union in Kirkuk.

Contact

Ewa Jasiewicz or Sabah Jawad, Naftana, UK Support Committee for the IFOU
07749 421 576 freelance@mailworks.org or 07946 334 238 sabah.jawad@idao.org

See www.basraoilunion.org for more information and background on the union

The Murderous Gangs of Political Islam Commit a Heinous Crime Against our Comrade Maitham Najah

The murderous hands of Political Islamic gangs, have assassinated, last month, our party member comrade Maitham Najah while spreading the words of socialism and equality among workers, youth, women, and students of Baghdad. The brutal crime was committed in Al Sifina neighborhood. After killing the comrade, the Islamic gang dislodged his family to an unknown destiny.

Our party strongly condemns this atrocious Islamic terrorist crime and pledges to do its best to hand the criminals to justice. It is the intrinsic tenet of Political Islam to use assassinations and coward elimination of communists, libertarians, and all freedom loving people.

The tragic situation in Iraq, created by the terrorist struggle between the US occupying forces and the gangs of Political Islam, as well as the lack of security, are all but results of the criminal war launched on the people of Iraq causing the collapse and destruction of its civil society. The killing of our brave comrade is part of the bigger crimes committed daily against the people of Iraq by the two sides of international terrorism; the US and Political Islam.

Our party offers its warmest condolences to the comrades, friends, and acquaintances of our dear Maitham. We specially offer our cordial condolences to the family and brothers of our comrade and wish them to endure the pain of these sad moments. Comrade Maitham has paid the utmost price for the most noble and humane cause and sacrificed his life in defense of all the deprived people of Iraq.

Our struggle for socialism, equality, and freedom will strongly continue. Such coward crimes will never stop our humane trend from bursting on.

Long live the memory of the brave comrade Maitham Najah !

Long live the memory of all those who sacrificed their precious lives for socialism. !

The Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq – LWPI

30-10-2005

Student support for Organisation for Women's Freedom

The Monash Student Council recently passed a motion
authorising the donation of $3000.00 to the
Organisation for Women's Freedom in Iraq.

MSA President Nick Richardson stated, "The donation we
have given to the Organisation for Women's Freedom in
Iraq will make a contribution to the struggles of the
Iraqi people for control over their own lives, and
against the US and Australian imperial occupiers as
well as the political Islamists. This donation can be
used in any way that the Organisation of Women's
Freedom in Iraq believes is necessary to defend the
Iraqi people, and women in particular, from the
violence and oppression of the occupation and its
consequences.

In 2005 the Monash Student Association made the
following financial commitments to other organisations
and non-student individuals in the pursuit of
progressive social change and in efforts to counter
the regressive policies of the Government:

$3000.00 for Organisation for Women's Freedom in
Iraq
(To assist an Iraqi Organisation affiliated with the
Iraqi Freedom Congress struggling against the US and
Australian occupation as well as Political Islamists)

$700.00 for the Melbourne Stop the War Coalition
(To assist in the organisation of political action
against the occupation in Iraq)

$400.00 for the Black GST campaign
(To assist in the campaign calling for a boycott of
the Commonwealth Games and addressing the
'stolenwealth?as a symptom of the continued genocide
of Indigenous peoples)

$6600.00 for legal fees for two asylum seekers
(Covering the costs of migration legal fees to assist
in their bid for freedom from detention)

$300.00 West Papua National Authority
(To assist in the efforts to gain West Papuan
independence)

Mr Richardson further said, "It is the ability of
student organisations to fight and assist others in
their battles against those who dominate over people
that makes student unions so important. Moreover, this
makes them the target of the Liberals, Barnaby Joyce
and the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee. They
want us to stop because we threaten their privileged
positions.

For further information contact
Nick Richardson
President
Monash Student Association
0405364230

Freedom of Expression Under Attack from Islamists in Denmark! (by Houzan Mahmoud, OWFI)

Politicised religion - of whatever denomination - will leave no place for freethinking, reason, or the conscious will of humans. This is a stark truth, but one that needs to be stated. Instead of the conscious ability of human beings to shape their world, we are subordinated to an imaginary "God". In the particular case of Islam, we are meant to live our lives according to a long dead "prophet" who has become a symbol of the oppression of women and a rigid patriarchy.

A Danish newspaper - Jyllends Posten - has recently published a story about 12 different portraits of the prophet Mohammed. This has provoked a backlash from political Islam, from groups and states. The common denominator - whatever the relative size or political weight of these protesters - is that all preach that people cannot use that most intrinsic of human capabilities - our imagination - to depict the prophet. Islamists assert that Mohammed never sat for a portrait, so - by definition - his pictorial representation is an act against Islam, a blasphemy.

The political Islamists in Denmark have not been alone in this: ambassadors of countries including Iran, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Pakistan have objected. They have fired off letters of complaint to the Danish prime minister and demanded he condemn this newspaper and clamp down on it.

This is not surprising. For those of us who have bitter first hand experience of Islamist groups and Islamic states in the Middle East, it is a depressingly familiar story. This is a template for how they maintain their ferocious, anti- egalitarian rule over people of that part of the world.

By making Islam the "exceptional religion" - with the clear implication no one has the right to even mildly criticise it, let alone paint a portrait of its prophet - effectively a gag is placed on any radical, dissenting voice. The people who want to raise their voices against the suffocating blanket of religiosity in their societies are silenced.

The brutal truth is that for the last two decades Islam - in the contemporary Middle East - has justified killing, stoning, imprisoning, veiling and forcing women into Borqa's. Women are imprisoned in the name of political Islam - a crime against all of humanity.

Not only women have suffered - progressives and secularists of all kinds have been persecuted simply because they have challenged political Islam's intrusion on the private realm of human beings, their right to decide their faiths and how these might impinge on their lives.

Islamalicists in power rule according to the precepts of sharia law. This institutionalises the oppression of women and the suppression of any kinds of democratic rights. Yet, in Europe, where this reactionary political trend has no opportunity to come to power, so-called 'freedom of choice' is cited to impose the veil on young girls and 'freedom of expression' to open Mosques, religious schools to bring up a brain washed generation of young people, and to silence those of us who want to tell the truth about them to society.

Many of us secular women live with death threats issued by Islamists for the simple fact that we are liberated, secular and use our brain to think, decide and live the way we want. We do not accept their rule, but actually question and challenge their power over us. They attempt to impose their thinking on us even in Europe; if someone dares to say something critical about Islam they are labelled an "islamaphobe" or even a "racist". This is a tactic to silence criticism, not engage in a dialogue.

But now women like us in Iraq have formed a women's organisation that is outspoken against political Islam, despite the daily threats from their terror gangs. Our Organisation of Women's Freedom of Iraq (OWFI) has been exposing the Islamists and their crimes against women in our society. This shows the potential for secularism and free-thinking among our people. Activists of OWFI, inside Iraq and abroad, are pioneering a movement against political Islam and have been exposing it on an international level and telling the whole world about the notorious nature of this dangerous contemporary trend which is political Islam.

The fact that women in our society are standing up against oppression, in the face of political forces that force us to wear the veil at a gun point, is an inspiration to friends of freedom, equality and secularism the world over.

In Europe, the Islamists use every possible opportunity to advance their agenda and to de-sensitise people to its reactionary inhumane content. They refuse to accept the fact that in Europe people have won the right to criticize all religions and political ideologies. So far Islam has escaped this. They have used the western states' espousal of "multiculturalism" to inflict violence against women and girls and practise the most barbaric "traditions" within these so-called "Muslim communities". This, we are told, is part of the 'traditions' of people from that part of the world. This must stop! Islam, like any other religion, must be a private matter and separate from politics.

I see no reason why ambassadors of all these countries and Islamic exiles make such a fuss about these portraits in Jyllends Posten. Of course, I don't have to agree with or approve of how artists have portrayed Mohammed - that is not the point. I believe strongly that artists should be free to create art without threats hanging over them.

Freedom of speech and expression should be protected. Criticism of all religions and Islam must be viewed as a normal right of all people. The progress of any human society can be measured by how free it is from religion. Questioning, criticizing and finally separating religions from politics is the only guarantee for a healthy, secular and egalitarian society.

Textile workers strike in Kadhimya Factory

The textile workers in the general company of cotton industries in Baghdad have launched a strike demanding their pays and the increase of danger compensation. The workers have had many rounds of negotiation with the management without reaching a solution. The strike has begun in September 10 until the end of the month; however, the demands were not met.

This is not the first time the workers launch strike, the company has witnessed many organized strikes and protests some of them were against the corruption of the management and demanded their replacement, some of the demanding bonuses and so on. There was a rumor among the workers saying that the minister of industry will request the intervention of the American troops to settle the problem using force.

Some officials have called on the American troops to intervene in a recent incident to suppress a worker protest under the text of the factory was infiltrated by insurgents who intend to burn it.

As the worker want to operate the plant in full capacity and extend their production, the ministry and the management attempt to put barriers and decrease production. in order to privatize the company under pretext of inefficiency, which is the same policy the ministry of industry following in order to privatize the public sector.



Federation of worker councils and unions in Iraq

Oct.2005

Regarding the textile workers strike

The textile workers in kadhimiya had a strike for more than two weeks amid the persistency of the workers to have their demands met.

Hundreds of workers are working and using very old style and dangerous machines and tools that caused many casualties or injuries among the workers, which lead to long-term disability in most of the cases.

The ministry has intervened many times to put the workers under pressure by threatening them to be fired or relocated. The former minister issued a number of resolutions preventing the workers from forming their own unions in their workplaces and the return to the resolutions enacted by the former regime, however the workers did not want obey these rules.

To guarantee the success of the workers in achieving and meeting their demands we have to expand the protest movement to include the entire country, simply because our demands are the same as the ones of other factories and plants everywhere else.

More than two years have passed and the labor movement is growing however, it has not reached the level of being widespread movement. The labor movement in Iraq must have an inclusive agenda to adopt the workers aims and interests as a social class and proposes an alternative that does not specify one sector but actually every field.

The worker council and unions in Iraq who organizes workers from different sects and fields, attempts to organize the labor movement across the country and lead a widespread protest movement to stand against any enmity policy that could hurt the workers and eventually to bring the workers alternative to the current situation.

Join your union and revolve around your goals and your interests to downfall the attempts of privatization, layoffs and freedom limitations.


Long live labor will

Long live labor movement


Federation of worker council and union in Iraq

September 30 2005

They mechanical industries workers are preparing for a sit in

The general company of the mechanical industries consists of more than 6000 workers who represent different sectors and fields. This company has different departments who have the ability to produce different types of mechanical tools.

The plant was ordered to stop production and the workers were forced to go on leave, and receive their paycheck without any benefits and bonuses, which is not enough to survive more than one week.

The workers had demanded to operate the plant and propose a long-term plan to keep operating the factory. In addition, the federation of worker councils and unions in Iraq had requested the ministry to operate the factory to avoid any layoff.

During the negotiation with the management, the management stated, “The ministries do not sign any contract with the company to ensure their needs, however they buy their needs of products from the private sector with high cost and poor quality”. The reason is to drive the plant to bankruptcy and labeling it as a non-productive business and shutting down the plant.

It is obvious that many companies, plants and factories that belong to the public sector are suffering from the same policy adopted by the government to label them as non-productive businesses, which will eventually be privatized and ultimately lead to millions of unemployed workers.



Federation of Worker Councils and Unions in Iraq

Sept.2005

Laying off hundreds of workers from the garment company

The garment company in Mahmoodya 25 Km south of Baghdad, which contains 1800 workers, has off more than 500 workers most of them were women. The management has made this decision based on allegation saying, “They are more than what we need”. The workers who were let go received no compensation or any kinds of benefit in spite of many of them have spent more than seventeen years in this company. Besides some of them were to old to look for another job or another opportunity.

The laid off workers have mentioned that the list of the lay off was prepared by the official union that is being illegalized by the government and enjoys good relations with the management. Furthermore, union members themselves have carried out the layoff process.

The federation of worker councils and unions in Iraq who organized the laid off workers, is preparing to carry out a demonstration and sit in, in front of the ministry of labor demanding their return to work, providing an alternative job or issuing an employment insurance to compensate the lost jobs.





Federation of Worker Councils and Unions in Iraq

Sept.2005

Iraqi Workers' Federation at Labour Party conference

Speech from Abdullah Muhsin from Iraqi Workers Federation Speech at the Labour Friends of Iraq fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference.
I would like to extend the warm greetings of the newly formed Iraqi Workers Federation (IWF) to each one of you. Thank you very much for your support and we proudly applaud the solidarity work of Unison in supporting the development of emerging Iraqi free, independent and democratic unions.
The IWF would like to applaud the work of the British TUC who have sent a fact-finding mission to Iraq and is working with the IFTU and with our sister unions in Iraqi Kurdistan to build the capacity of free and democratic unions in Iraq.
I strongly believe that supporting Iraqi democrats, socialists and free trade unions, is today the most important work there is.
Sisters and brothers
Iraq has suffered terribly under Saddam's murderous rule, which has cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis. And as you see now on your TV screens, the suffering continues today. Iraq is still being occupied by foreign forces and is not yet peaceful or democratic.
Our fledgling federation is fighting for a democratic Iraq, free from foreign forces. And it fights for the building of free, independent and democratic unions, free from state and political parties’ interference. The IWF struggles alongside Iraqi progressive forces for:
* secular constitution that guarantees women's and workers’ rights according to international standards and specifically the fundamental laws of the International Labour organisation (ILO).
* free and democratic elections, which are supervised by the UN, so as Iraq can regain full sovereignty.
* Labour and social security codes that adhere to ILO standards.
* These were among some of the demands our federation raised since ever the fall of Saddam’s despicable regime on April 9 2003 and these demands are still our goal today.
Colleagues, let me start by talking about the impact of terrorism on my homeland Iraq.
We want foreign troops out of Iraq as part of the UN political process. And we want free, open and democratic elections so as Iraq can regain its full sovereignty.
The majority of Iraqis, as you saw on your TV screens on 30 January’s election, battle to end the occupation, to build the institutions of democracy; and struggle to prevent the return of authoritarian rule and, of course to stop and eradicate the growth of extremism in Iraq.
But in this work, reactionary and anti-social forces and terrorists hinder us and are causing grave security problems. Unfortunately the current government of Al Jaffari is not helping, although the IWF supports its political drive in general, as it is envisaged by UN resolution 1546.
Iraq is bleeding from the wounds inflicted by acts of extremism - of suicide car bombs that deliberately target innocent Iraqi people. Just like the one that targeted unemployed workers queuing for desperately needed work on 14 September 2005 and killed indiscriminately over 150 construction workers and cleaners.
And a few weeks prior to the above horror, Iraq saw another great tragedy committed by a terrorist inspired panic, which lead to the death of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, in the stampede on Al Khadamiya Bridge in Baghdad.
On the draft constitution, the IWF support the draft in general, although we have great reservations about the draft being proposed for a referendum on 15 October 2005.
The IWF reservations are firstly the reference to Islam as the source of law and specifically with reference to women’s civil rights - inheritance, divorce and children. The IWF support the principle of federalism to Iraqi Kurdistan but strongly oppose the sectarian way to divide Iraq.
Please allow me to say few words on the latest developments within the Iraqi trade union movement.
The IFTU since its foundation on the 16 May 2003 insisted on the importance and need to reform the Iraqi labour movement into one single TUC, not on an ideological basis but as a genuine democratic and independent national trade union movement, independent of state and political parties.
I am proud to report that after months of detailed discussions in Baghdad and across Iraq, the three trade union federations in Iraq (IFTU, GFTU and the GFITU) have merged together on the 20 September 2005 and have formed the Iraqi Workers Federation (IWF).
With your help, the TUC and the international Labour movement (ICFTU), the IWF can play an important role in helping a sovereign and democratic Iraq to emerge from the long night mare of Saddam.
In all these tasks we appeal for your help.
Abdullah Muhsin
IWF
Labour Party Conference
28 September 2005

The Stance of the GUOE in the Southern Region Towards the Occupation

Greetings to you my dear friends,

I would like to convey the greetings of all the union executive committee members’ greetings and to clarify the union’s opinion. I hope that you do not listen to the third party who wants to undermine your trust in the union, for we have set a path for ourselves that all of us in the union shall not deviate from.

Our stand is frank and clear towards the occupation, and we constantly demand “the immediate departure of the occupation forces from the country,” because we are capable of administering the state as Iraqis, whatever the consequences, and because such ability exists amongst the Iraqis. The current divisions are caused by the occupation.

I personally talked in the United States with the president of the AFL-CIO about the occupation and its consequences for the Iraqis and the calamities and afflictions that the occupation bequeathed the Iraqi people. We have also demanded that the union should have a steadfast stand towards the occupation. Our friends at the union’s [AFL-CIO] conference on 20th July 2005 passed a resolution condemning the occupation, following our political and union meetings during our visit to the US starting 10th June 2005. We made clear to all the American people our stand towards the occupation and its disadvantages. Our union also issued several statements condemning the occupation during the attacks [aggression] on the innocents in Hilla, Baghdad and [the whole of] Iraq.

The union’s stand is frank and clear, and it is an inner [deeply felt] and patriotic feeling of all the union’s members that the occupation forces must leave the country immediately, whatever the consequences. The statements that we issue demanding [our] rights are addressed to the Iraqi state, which is why we do not mention the occupation in them and why we issue the occasional specific statements on the occupation and its drawbacks.

Greetings to all of you,
Hassan Juma’a Awwad Al-Assadi
President of the union

Iraqi Workers' Federation at Labour Party conference

Speech by Abdullah Muhsin, on behalf of the Iraqi Workers' Federation (formerly IFTU) at the Labour Friends of Iraq fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference.
I would like to extend the warm greetings of the newly formed Iraqi Workers Federation (IWF) to each one of you. Thank you very much for your support and we proudly applaud the solidarity work of Unison in supporting the development of emerging Iraqi free, independent and democratic unions.
The IWF would like to applaud the work of the British TUC who have sent a fact-finding mission to Iraq and is working with the IFTU and with our sister unions in Iraqi Kurdistan to build the capacity of free and democratic unions in Iraq.
I strongly believe that supporting Iraqi democrats, socialists and free trade unions, is today the most important work there is.
Sisters and brothers
Iraq has suffered terribly under Saddam's murderous rule, which has cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis. And as you see now on your TV screens, the suffering continues today. Iraq is still being occupied by foreign forces and is not yet peaceful or democratic.
Our fledgling federation is fighting for a democratic Iraq, free from foreign forces. And it fights for the building of free, independent and democratic unions, free from state and political parties’ interference. The IWF struggles alongside Iraqi progressive forces for:
* secular constitution that guarantees women's and workers’ rights according to international standards and specifically the fundamental laws of the International Labour organisation (ILO).
* free and democratic elections, which are supervised by the UN, so as Iraq can regain full sovereignty.
* Labour and social security codes that adhere to ILO standards.
These were among some of the demands our federation raised since ever the fall of Saddam’s despicable regime on April 9 2003 and these demands are still our goal today.
Colleagues, let me start by talking about the impact of terrorism on my homeland Iraq.
We want foreign troops out of Iraq as part of the UN political process. And we want free, open and democratic elections so as Iraq can regain its full sovereignty.
The majority of Iraqis, as you saw on your TV screens on 30 January’s election, battle to end the occupation, to build the institutions of democracy; and struggle to prevent the return of authoritarian rule and, of course to stop and eradicate the growth of extremism in Iraq.
But in this work, reactionary and anti-social forces and terrorists hinder us and are causing grave security problems. Unfortunately the current government of Al Jaffari is not helping, although the IWF supports its political drive in general, as it is envisaged by UN resolution 1546.
Iraq is bleeding from the wounds inflicted by acts of extremism - of suicide car bombs that deliberately target innocent Iraqi people. Just like the one that targeted unemployed workers queuing for desperately needed work on 14 September 2005 and killed indiscriminately over 150 construction workers and cleaners.
And a few weeks prior to the above horror, Iraq saw another great tragedy committed by a terrorist inspired panic, which lead to the death of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children, in the stampede on Al Khadamiya Bridge in Baghdad.
On the draft constitution, the IWF support the draft in general, although we have great reservations about the draft being proposed for a referendum on 15 October 2005.
The IWF reservations are firstly the reference to Islam as the source of law and specifically with reference to women’s civil rights - inheritance, divorce and children. The IWF support the principle of federalism to Iraqi Kurdistan but strongly oppose the sectarian way to divide Iraq.
Please allow me to say few words on the latest developments within the Iraqi trade union movement.
The IFTU since its foundation on the 16 May 2003 insisted on the importance and need to reform the Iraqi labour movement into one single TUC, not on an ideological basis but as a genuine democratic and independent national trade union movement, independent of state and political parties.
I am proud to report that after months of detailed discussions in Baghdad and across Iraq, the three trade union federations in Iraq (IFTU, GFTU and the GFITU) have merged together on the 20 September 2005 and have formed the Iraqi Workers Federation (IWF).
With your help, the TUC and the international Labour movement (ICFTU), the IWF can play an important role in helping a sovereign and democratic Iraq to emerge from the long night mare of Saddam.
In all these tasks we appeal for your help.
Abdullah Muhsin
IWF
Labour Party Conference
28 September 2005

IUS leaflet for 24/09/05 demonstration and Labour Party conference

This leaflet can also be downloaded as a pdf.

Solidarity with Iraqi workers!

Decree 875

In August Decree 875, issued on behalf of the Council of Ministers of Iraq, declared that “a government committee... must take control of all moneys belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such moneys”.

It also said it would lay down its own guidelines on “how trade unions should function, operate, and organise”.

The Iraqi government, as far as we know, has not yet actually seized any union funds, or shut down any union offices. The reason is the government’s general inability to carry through any decrees anywhere outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, rather than any rethink. The decree remains as a legal manifesto for suppressing the de facto freedom that unions have had in Iraq since the fall of Saddam.

US/UK troops hated

Iraqi trade unions and international trade-union bodies have protested, but so far there has been no comment by the US and British governments who said they would bring democracy to Iraq.

The US and UK have also assented to a draft Iraqi constitution which, in articles 2 and 39, lays the basis for Iraqi women to be subjected to sharia law in all family matters.

The occupying forces in Iraq are widely hated for their brutality, arrogance, and corruption. Iraqis want a free Iraq, without foreign troops.

“Resistance” targets workers, women, Shia, trade-unionists

But the Sunni-supremacist, Islamist or neo-Ba’thist, “resistance” is even worse. They inflict on the people of Iraq, every day, what people in London got just one taste of in the suicide bombings here on 7 July. Just in the week after those London bombings, in Iraq 31 suicide bombings killed 238 people.

As well as killing workers at random, and targeting sectarian attacks at Iraq’s Shia majority, “resistance” groups have assassinated trade unionists.

Support the Iraqi labour movement!

A new labour movement has emerged in Iraq since the fall of Saddam. Diverse, full of internal conflicts, and hard-pressed, it still exists. It has organised strikes, demonstrations, conferences, and factory agitation.

It is not only the necessary self-defence movement of Iraq’s workers, but also the force in Iraq which can mobilise the harassed majority, across Shia-Sunni-Kurdish sectarian lines, for a democratic, secular, and free Iraq. It is the positive alternative both to the US/UK occupation and to the reactionary “resistance”.

The new Iraqi trade unions urgently need international solidarity. Iraq Union Solidarity exists to organise that support.

Contact us! Web: www.iraqunionsolidarity.org. Email: iraqunionsolidarity@yahoo.com. Phone: 07979 421475. Postal address: c/o Pauline Bradley (convenor), 48 Grand Parade, Green Lanes, London N4 1AG.

Video on Iraqi unions

In June 2005 six senior Iraqi trade union leaders toured the United States hosted by U.S. Labor Against the War, visiting 25 cities and speaking to several thousand unionists, peace activists, and others.
A new video documentary about the tour captures the energy and emotions of the tour while expressing the important substantive message Iraqi workers want to convey to all Americans: end the occupation; oppose the privatization of Iraqi national resources; and support the right of all Iraqi workers to organize free and independent trade unions.

See the trailer online, and find out more, here.

GUOE Position on Privatisation

August 2005 - Statement by Union President Hassan Jum'a Awwad Al-Assadi, translated from Arabic by Dr Kamil Mahdi, University of Exeter

In The Name of God the Merciful and Beneficient

Subject: The Stance of the GUOE in the southern region on privatisation

Greetings (Assalamu Alikum wa rahmatu-allhi wa barakatuhu)

Friends, I wish to convey to you the greetings of your friends the members of the Executive Board of the Union, and we wish to clarify to you our view on privatisation, an issue of major concern for us as workers' movement leaders in this most important of work venues, i.e. oil. Our stance on this intricate issue is clear and explicit.

The privatisation of the oil and industrial sectors is the objective of all in the Iraqi state [Government], and we must state that we will stand firm against this imperialist plan that would hand over Iraq's wealth to international capitalism such that the deprived Iraqi people would not benefit from it.

We reaffirm our unshakeable position on this basic issue for the future of the new Iraq, for we cannot build our country unless its wealth is in its own possession, and we need your assistance and support as we are fighting our enemies on the inside and you are our support outside.

The GUOE is the only union which has taken this courageous stance of fighting privatisation, and we are taking this path for the sake of Iraq's glory even if it costs us our lives. The reason for this is that we feel that the Iraqis are capable of managing the their companies and their investments by themselves, because they have huge capabilities and technical knowledge.

We want you to know that we transformed the Iraqi Drilling Company from a non-existent entity into a company that is akin to international one, and it now owns 13 Drilling Towers which is a pride to all of us. For that and for all the achievements in the Oil Sector, we stand firm against privatisation, and I trust you confidence in the Union will not be shaken, for we have charted our steady and clear path from which we cannot ever never deviate.

IFTU President, Raseen Alawadi addresses British trade unionists at TUC 2005 Conference

The President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), Raseen Alawadi addressed a fringe meeting of British trade unionists on Wednesday 14 September on the most recent dramatic developments on the situation for trade unionists in Iraq. The meeting was sponsored by UNISON, Britain's largest union and chaired by Sue Rogers, Treasurer of teachers' union NASUWT and Chair of the British TUC's Iraq Solidarity Committee. UNISON Deputy General Secretary, Keith Sonnet who has recently returned from a trade union delegation to Iraqi Kurdistan also addressed the meeting.

Raseen Alawadi joined the Construction and Woodworkers' Union in 1957 and by 1959 had already been arrested for trade union activities. By 1968 he had become International Secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and also during this period became Vice President of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions (ICATU).

In 1979 he was arrested in a purge by the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein that included the murder of GFTU President Mohamed Ayish. Raseen and others accused of plotting against the Iraqi dictator were imprisoned but escaped from Iraq in 1991, returning in April 2003 after the fall of Saddam's regime to establish the IFTU.

Raseen reminded the British trade unionists that Iraq's people continued to bleed from wounds inflicted by terrorism. Earlier that same day the TUC President, Jeannie Drake had informed delegates of the terrible news of yet another car bomb in Baghdad, deliberately targetted at Iraqi workers queuing outside an employment agency for desperately needed jobs. This horror followed the great tragedy a few weeks previously that saw a terrorist-inspired panic lead to the deaths of more than a thousand people in the stampede on Al Khadamiya bridge.

Such terror attacks fall on trade unionists on a regular basis, Raseen said: "When we go to our offices in the morning, we don't know whether we will be coming home again." Yet, Raseen insisted that despite the existence of these fundamentalists who attack working class people in their homes and workplaces and in the street, the IFTU remains optimistic. The foreign intervention feeds such extremism and that is why the IFTU reiterates its position of calling for an end to the occupation of Iraq by foreign armies.

On the furious debate that is taking place in Iraq over the new draft constitution, Raseen said; "In general we support the need for the new constitution, although we have great reservations about the current draft being proposed to the Iraqi parliament."

The IFTU's reservations are firstly the references to Islam and religion as the source of the law under the constitution, secondly the draft constitution's relegation of the position of women, thirdly the crude references to de-Ba'athification, which fail to distinguish between the bloody criminals of Saddam's regime and the many thousands of ordinary Iraqi people who may have joined Saddam's Ba'ath Party because of fear, or to protect a relative, or in order to access higher education or employment. Fourthly, the IFTU supports the principle of federalism in the draft Constitution, but opposes the sectarian way that this is being used by Islamists in the south to divide Iraq.

Raseen said: "We are working for national unity on the basis of equality under the law. We have worked for over two years now for the creation of one united, democratic trade union movement in Iraq and we have now achieved this goal with the joint statements that were signed between the IFTU, the GFTU and the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions" (GFITU - a fraction of the former state-run GFTU that split off following the fall of Saddam Hussein, in an attempt to gain political patronage from the Islamic political parties al-Dawa and SCIRI).

As a result of the detailed discussions that have taken place in the last few months between these three organisations, three joint statements have been issued calling for unity and there will be a further meeting in Damascus on Monday 19 September at the offices of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions, to formally recognise and adopt the merged federation, which will be known as the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions.

"The current government of Prime Minister, Al-Jaafari, has issued the notorious Decree 875 to try to prevent this united, democratic national trade union centre emerging in Iraq and we will not let him succeed", Raseen said.

Since the foreign forces invaded Iraq and occupied it, the IFTU has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the ending of the interference in Iraq's affairs by foreign governments such as that of Iran and certain Arab countries.

"The IFTU did not legitimise the occupation of Iraq, it was legitimise by the United Nations under Resolution 1483. Now it is time for the international labour movement to call clearly for Iraq's sovereignty to be returned and to assist democrats in Iraq to resist the attempts to breach women's rights and trade unionists' rights", Raseen concluded.

Brendan Barber's letter to the Iraqi government about decree no. 875

Dear Dr al Shaikhly

Trade unions in Iraq

As you may know, the TUC has taken a close interest in supporting the re-establishment of trade unions in Iraq, and I would like to convey through you our concerns about restrictions being placed on the rights of trade unions in Iraq by the Iraqi Government.

My concern results from a decree signed on 7 August revoking previous arrangements under the Transitional Administrative Law which allowed trade unions to operate and function without undue interference or harassment from the state, and therefore legitimised free trade unionism in Iraq for the first time since the Ba’ath Party took control of the trade unions in the 1970s.

Decree no. 875 was issued on behalf of the Council of Ministers of the Iraqi Republic by the Cabinet General Secretary. It reads (according to our translation from the Arabic):

“The Decree no. 3 issued by the Governing Council in 2004 led to the formation of a government committee responsible for labour and social rights headed by Naseer al-Charderdi. This committee no longer has that responsibility and in its place a new committee is established comprising the Ministers of Justice, the Interior, Finance, the Minister of State responsible for the Transitional Assembly, the Minister for Civil Society, and the Minister of National Security.

“This committee must review all the decisions taken to oversee the implementation of Decree no. 3 since its publication in 2004 and must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies. In addition I am proposing a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise” (our italics).

Signed Dr Fahdal Abass (Cabinet General Secretary)

My concern is that by taking control of the finances of existing unions, the Iraqi government is effectively closing down their operations and therefore removing the right to freedom of association with no indication of how long this suspension will last. This is a prima facie breach of the ILO core convention on Freedom of Association and a deeply worrying attack on human rights in Iraq. If the Government of Iraq wishes to revise the arrangements under which trade unions operate, they should be discussing that with the trade unions themselves, rather than closing them down.

I have to say, as well, that the Iraqi Government’s actions rather undermine their previously stated position that they could not move forwards on implementing the labour law that had been developed in consultation with unions and the ILO because of the need to address issues such as the draft Constitution – if they had time to take this action against trade unions, they have had time to introduce the labour law.

It is also a matter of considerable concern to the TUC that the laws banning trade unions in local and national government introduced in 1987 by Saddam Hussein remain in place. While Iraq was liberalising trade union law under Decree no.3 (2004), and given the transitional status of so many laws, this was understandable if regrettable. But now that the Iraqi Government seems to have thrown the process into reverse by effectively shutting down the operation of legitimate free trade unions, it becomes an unacceptable restriction of the human and trade union rights, which we understood to have been guaranteed by Article 13 of the Transitional Administrative Law.

I hope that you will be able to register our concerns with the Iraqi Government at the earliest opportunity and in the strongest possible terms. I have raised this matter directly with the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, and will also be raising the matter with the ILO through the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. I would welcome your views as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely



Brendan Barber
General Secretary

IIST Conference on draft constitution

IRAQ INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES (IIST)
Hosted By London Middle East Institute (LMEI)

INVITES YOU TO A WORKSHOP ON
DEBATING THE DRAFT CONSTITUTION OF IRAQ:
WHAT SHOULD BE AMENDED BEFORE REFERENDUM?

The IIST is organizing a workshop/conference on the draft constitution submitted to the Iraq Constituent Assembly. Advocates of democracy, pluralism, federalism, bills of rights, women’s and minority rights should have a chance to voice their concerns and express their wishes. The workshop/conference will focus on one major question: What should be amended? A nationwide advocacy campaign will follow to inform political actors and legislators and amend the constitution.

9-10 September 2005-08-17
London University, SOAS, Brunei Building, Room B102


Day One: Workshop, Constitutional experts’ views and community discussion

9 September (Friday, Afternoon)

4.30 p.m. Registration
5-8 p.m. Two Sessions

Day Two: Communities’ Concerns and Recommendation
10 September (Saturday)

First Session 11-2.00 p.m. Views
Second Session 4-6 p.m. Recommendations for amendment

Contact phone numbers: 0208 5780600; (mobile: 0795 104 3371);
(mobile) 0790567897; 02075392209; 07952790016

Contact e-mail address: flaeh1@btopenworld.com; saadkt3@yahoo.com

Nearest Tubes: Russell Square (Piccadilly line), and Tottenham Court Road (Central line)






Rules of Contribution


1- On Day One we will all listen to constitutional experts. They will try to develop a comparative view on the Draft Constitution.
All participants are invited to ask and/or comment to develop major thematic points. Questions will have 3 minutes; comments will have five minutes each.


2- Day Two, Session One:
Representatives of groups and communities will present 7-10 minutes each
on a basic question: What is wrong with the Draft from the specific
interest/view of each group or community..


3- Day Two: Session two: Another set of representatives of the same groups/communities would present a specific proposal to amend the constitution in line with their interests and values. Each proposal should be written and presented in Five minutes, to allow for as much proposals as possible.


4- Each interest group or community will be represented by a minimum of five participants. Larger participation is welcomed.

Iraqi Refugees AGM

FEDERATION OF IRAQI REFUGEES, MANCHESTER

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
AND SOLIDARITY EVENT

WEDNESDAY 4th SEPTEMBER FROM 4.30pm

Venue: Longsight Library, Stockport Road (A6), Manchester

You are warmly invited to attend this meeting.

There will be an in depth discussion about the forced deportations of Iraqi asylum seekers.


For more information contact:

Burhan Fatah: (Chairman)
Federation of Iraqi Refugees
Greenfish Resource Centre
Oldham Street
Manchester
Tel: 0161 234 2784 / 07866 757 213

IFTU Statement on the Khadimiya tragedy

The IFTU on behalf of all Iraqi trade unionists today expressed deepest sorrow at the terrible tragedy that has befallen Iraq on 31 August in Kadhimiya, Baghdad, which has led to the death of more than 960 victims, with more than 800 people injured. This is truly a national catastrophe.

Whoever is behind this tragedy, whether it be the terrorists and extremists who want to prevent Iraqi citizens from practising their religious ritual or those simply wanting to spread fear and chaos, the Iraqi state must assure Iraqis that such disasters cannot happen again.

The IFTU sends its condolences to the people of Iraq and the families who have lost loved ones.

The IFTU Executive Committee,
31 August 2005

Unison: Iraqi trade unions under threat

(22/8/05) The new Iraqi government is attempting to control trade union activity by overturning an agreement that allowed them to operate without any undue interference or harassment from the state.

A new decree adopted by the Iraqi Council of Ministers stated that the government would be ‘taking control of all monies belonging to the trade unions to prevent them from dispensing any such monies.’

The decree also says that a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise will be prepared.

In a letter to the foreign secretary Jack Straw, UNISON general secretary Dave Prentis said the decree represents a major attack on the ability of independent and democratic trade unions to organise.

He pointed out that under the former agreement trade union issues were the responsibility of the Labour and Social Rights Committee whereas now the responsibility has been transferred to a new committee which will include a number of government ministers, but not the employment and social affairs minister.

“I am concerned that this decree, and especially the measures relating to trade union financial assets, is an attempt to curb the growth of free trade unions in Iraq,” said Prentis.

“On behalf of UNISON I would request that you raise this matter with the Iraqi authorities at the first possible occasion.”

ITF slams new Iraqi crackdown on unions

24 August 2005

The ITF has condemned a new decree in Iraq that crushes trade unions’ right to operate free of government interference or harassment.

The decree, passed on 7 August, revokes decisions taken on union rights by Iraq’s provisional government and permits the control and confiscation of trade union monies by the current authorities. It also states that the right to carry out union activities is to be reviewed.

In a letter dated 24 August, ITF General Secretary David Cockroft, told Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari: “We are concerned that control of Iraqi trade unions’ monies might lead to the weakening of the Iraqi unions’ capabilities,” and added: “This is considered a clear breach of the International Labour Organization (ILO) core labour standards on freedom of association and a direct attack on human rights in Iraq.”

He also called on the government to discuss any future review of trade union activities with the unions themselves and raised concerns that laws dating from 1987, forbidding union organisation in the public sector, remain in place.

Cockroft pledged to raise these issues with the ILO through the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

Commenting on the situation, Bilal Malkawi, ITF Arab World Offices said: “While the ITF, Global Union Federations, and many international trade union organisations are working intensively to support Iraqi workers, the government is taking this action instead of helping unions to face the challenges ahead. I am really shocked by these measures, but I know for sure that the Iraqi unions are in a strong enough position to keep moving forward.”

On the Iraqi Council of Ministers’ attack on ILO core conventions

To the Iraqi working people:

The Iraqi working people are playing an important role in the development of the new Iraq and are helping in the re-building of Iraq's devastated national economy.

They are taking a full active role in the consolidation of the current political process in order to create a democratic, united and federal state after years of repression and hardship at the hands of the deposed dictatorship of Saddam.

Today our courageous working people are exerting their legitimate rights to assist in the building of a democratic state, to defend the fundamental rights of working people in a free and democratic Iraq.

But today despite our sacrifices and instead of receiving the support they deserve from the new Iraqi state, the Iraqi working people and their legitimate trade unions are subjected to unjust attacks and clear open interference in the internal affairs by the "new" old Iraqi Council of Ministers and some Ministries of the transitional government. Their purpose is to prevent working people from organising free and democratic unions. Saddam Hussein’s anti union Law 150 of 1987 is still being applied.

Our working people across Iraq from Basra, Kirkuk and Babel, Najaf and Messan (Al Amarah) are aware of this repressive manoeuvre against our trade union movement and are determined to exercise their legitimate rights to organise workers in free unions. We declare our resolve that we shall continue to use all democratic means available; strikes, courts procedure and protests to stop this undemocratic practice against workers.

To this end we shall mobilise our working people across Iraq and especially in industries such as Oil, Transport and Docks and in the public sector against this violation of our fundamental rights to organise free from state interference.

The IFTU as a key patriotic component of Iraq society determined to uphold and defend the rights of working people to organise, to representation and to take strike action as stated in the core conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), condemns this unjust and unprovoked attack against the Iraqi working class.

We also call upon our working people to face head on this old "new" attack by the transitional government, which aims to prevent us from organising freely.

We affirm that the IFTU will continue to be loyal defenders of the rights and aspiration of Iraqi working people for a free, open and democratic society.

IFTU Executive,
Baghdad
25 August 2005

Iraqi government Decree 875 marks critical moment in post-Saddam politics

The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions London Office reports on the latest developments in respect of trade union and workers' rights in Iraq.

On 8 August, 2005 The Council of Ministers of the Iraqi Republic issued a Decree No. 875, which was signed by the Cabinet General Secretary and which marks a critical moment in post-Saddam Iraqi politics.

The Decree 875 revokes the former arrangements announced under the Transitional Law, for trade unions to operate and function without undue interference or harassment from the state.

Decree 875 reads:

"The Decree No. 3 issued by the Governing Council in 2004 led to the formation of a government Committee responsible for Labour and Social Rights headed by Naseer al-Charderdi. This Committee is no longer have the responsibility and. In its place a new Committee is established comprising the Ministers of Justice, the Interior, Finance, the Minister of State responsible for the Transitional Assembly, the Minister for Civil Society, and the Minister of National Security.

"This Committee must review all the decisions taken to oversee the implementation of Decree no. 3 since its publication in 2004 and must take control of all monies belonging to the trade unions and prevent them from dispensing any such monies.

"In addition I am proposing a new paper on how trade unions should function, operate and organise."

Signed
Dr Fahdal Abass
(Cabinet General Secretary) 7 August 2005.

This decree was copied to the following:
The Prime Minister of Iraq, Mr al-Jaafri;
The Under Secretary of the Council of Ministers;
All Ministries;
All Ministers of State;
The Supreme Federal Court;
The Council of the Judiciary;
The Head of the implementation Committee of Decree No. 3 (2004), Naseer
al-Charderdi;
All members of the above Committee;
The Cabinet General Secretary

IFTU protests military attacks on workers

A US military helicopter indiscriminently attacked workers without any justification gathered in Alawi Al-Hilla district in Baghdad on 15 August 2005, where the Transport and Communication Workers' Union has its head office injuring 26 workers who were taken to hospital.

IFTU strongly condemns this act of violence and is calling on the American miliitary forces in iraq to issue an apology and compensate injured workers.

IFTU is also calling upon Iraq's transitional government to investigate this incident and demand that such incident must not be repeated again by US forces.

IFTU
Baghdad 17 August 2005

Houzan Mahmoud: Iraq must reject a constitution that enslaves women

Today is the deadline for Iraq's ruling political classes to agree a brand new "constitution" for the country - but don't be deceived, this is likely to be nothing but another false dawn for Iraq's women. Much of the debate over the constitution's main articles has centred on the degree to which Islam will be the source for future laws in Iraq. This spells disaster for Iraq's women, and represents a cave-in to the terrorist Islamist groups who are "committing crimes against humanity" on an almost daily basis, in the words of Amnesty International.

The constitution's drafting committee, like Iraq's legislative assembly, is dominated by religious, ethnic and tribal figures. Committee members have been pushing for Islamic Sharia law to be the sole source of the constitution and there is strong resistance to the incorporation of any human rights standards that are seen as usurping Islamic legal supremacy.

By all accounts, the finished document is going to reflect the growing forced Islamisization of Iraqi life, as the poison of Islamic groups spreads into the mainstream. Supposedly moderate politicians are disastrously disinclined to challenge the increasingly powerful Islamist factions that now hold sway in almost every quarter of post-occupation Iraq. Whether Sunni or Shia; in the current government or in opposition; affiliated directly to al-Qa'ida or to the Jordanian fanatic Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or are former Baathists who "freelance" as so-called "resistance fighters", what unites Iraq's armed Islamists is a fierce hatred of women that rivals their hatred for US and British "invaders", foreign "infidels" and other assorted enemies.

Across the country, a steady clampdown on women's rights has been going unreported and unchecked by the government. Islamic terrorism is killing and injuring Iraqi women daily, employing among other weapons, acid attacks.

My women's rights group, the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq, has been documenting part of the upsurge in violence against women. In March this year, for example, followers of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr targeted an outing of students from Basra University. Playing football and listening to music, the mixed group was attacked in Basra Public Park. One male student was killed trying to defend his female friends against Islamists who literally tore the women's clothes off their bodies. Sadr's men photographed the dishevelled, half-dressed women, and told them that their parents would receive the photos if they didn't refrain in future from "immoral" behaviour.

More widely, professional women have been deliberately targeted and killed - notably in the city of Mosul - and, recently, anti-women Islamists in Baghdad have taken to throwing acid in women's faces and on to their uncovered legs.So-called "honour killings" are rife, as is the kidnapping and rape of women. Beheadings have occurred and women have been sold into sexual servitude. When I was in Baghdad a few months ago, I couldn't go anywhere without a bodyguard. The sense of danger and threat was tangible.

Islamist repression against women is a campaign of "moral" terror. Leaflets, graffiti and verbal warnings in their thousands warn women against going out unveiled, against putting on make-up, and against shaking hands or mixing with men. Female doctors have been prevented from treating male patients, and male doctors warned not to attend to women.This is a recipe for future gender enslavement, second-class citizenship and ignorance. Thousands of female university students have now given up their studies to protect themselves against Islamist threats.

Islamist hostility is contagious and echoed daily in high-level political debate. Currently there is a drive over the "right" of men to have four wives, to make divorce a male preserve and for custody of children to be given to men only. Even women on Iraq's National Assembly - the country's parliament - have been calling for resolutions to allow for the beating of women by their guardians (males relatives, such as husbands or fathers). This is all the outcome of the occupation of Iraq. This has been pursued under the name of liberation, but what we actually see is women increasingly losing their freedom, while political Islamists feel free to terrorise them. The Islamicists pour into this invaded, so-called Muslim land in order, they say, to liberate it; but in reality, neither the US nor the Islamists are our liberators. They both really fight for power and influence in Iraq and in the region.

The January so-called election and today's constitution are all part of the same procedure, which is to legitimate the current installed government in Iraq. It is only in an atmosphere of occupation and terror; they can push their reactionary ideas forward.

The constitution is set to add to a growing fearfulness among Iraqi women, as their rights are passed over or signed away to Islamists hostile to Iraq's entire female population. Women in Iraq face being dragged back into the dark ages. We need to stop this tragedy before it's too late. A constitution based on enslaving women, religious sectarianism, and tribalism must be rejected.

The writer is the UK Head of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq and co-founder of the Iraq Freedom Congress. e-mail:houzan73@ yahoo.co.uk

Health Care Workers in Kirkuk Hold A Strike

In August 3, 2005 the health care workers in the hospital and medical centers in Kirkuk (270km to the north of Baghdad) and its suburban cities have held a general strike against the resolution passed by the ministry of health (numbered 232971 in July 6, 2005) to decrease the pay of the employees.

The strike began at 9:00 am local time and lasted for 2 hours after the ministry officials have received the workers' demands and promised that they will pass them on to the minister of health.

In a TV interview in Kirkuk (Sherkow Mohammed Rahim) a health care worker said "our demands are not only the abolishment of this resolution but also include providing means of transportation, epidemic compensation pay, housing and accommodations for the employees" he also vowed that they will hold an open strike next Sunday unless their demands will be met.

And below is the list of these demands:

"After two and half years of the downfall of the former regime, we the health care workers who are considered the most important part of the society do not enjoy our most basic rights. However the ministry and instead of appreciate our work, issued a resolution to decrease our pay that we earned through years of struggle.

Iraq is a very rich country and has all resources that are able to bring prosperity and welfare for every Iraqi. Therefore we present below our demands which we believe they are the demands of all the health care workers:

1. The abolishment of decree 23971

2. increase of the salary according to the inflation rate

3. issuing a payment called epidemic compensation pay

4. considering payment for employees with families and children

5. considering payment for overtime work or weekend

6. considering payment to compensate for transportation

7. considering absence period for political reasons or because of suppression of the former regime as a service time in the mentioned sector

8. decrease of hours of the working day to 6hr/day

9. passing a law to protect the healthcare workers from any physical or verbal abuse they face everyday

10. eliminating taxes

11. our ministry should be considered as a productive sector therefore should be included in the profit budget

12. issuing loans to the workers who want to get married

Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq –FWCUI

03.08.05

AFL-CIO resolution on Iraq

Chicago: In a major change of course, the AFL-CIO Convention delegates voted this afternoon in favor of a resolution calling for a "rapid" return of all U.S. troops from Iraq.

Eighteen AFL-CIO state federations, central labor councils and unions had submitted resolutions to the convention calling for an immediate or rapid end to the occupation and return of the troops. The General Executive Council, meeting on the eve of the convention, submitted a resolution that borrowed heavily from elements of those eighteen but failed to clearly call for a prompt end to the occupation.

When it came time for the convention to act on the resolution Tuesday afternoon, Fred Mason, President of the Maryland/District of Columbia AFL-CIO, offered a "friendly" amendment that clarified and strengthened opposition to continued occupation of Iraq. The amendment was accepted by the leadership and the modified resolution was adopted by an overwhelming majority of delegates following a parade of delegates who spoke in favor of its adoption (none spoke in opposition).



(This action occurred after delegates of four unions - SEIU, Teamsters, UFCW, and UNITE HERE had already departed the convention after announcing their decision to boycott the proceedings. The SEIU and Teamsters subsequently also announced their disaffiliation.)



Rising to speak in favor of the resolution, Henry Nicholas, President of District 1199 of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) of Pennsylvania, told the delegates that his son had been deployed to Iraq four times and was about to be sent again. He said, "In my forty-five years in the labor movement, this is my proudest moment in being a union member, because it is the first time we had the courage to say 'enough is enough.'"



USLAW Co-Convenor Gene Bruskin observed, "The action taken by this convention puts the AFL-CIO on record for a rapid end to the Iraq occupation - a stand squarely in the mainstream of American public opinion." Polls taken in late June show more than half of the American people feel the war was a mistake and similarly that it has made the U.S. less, not more safe. A majority of Americans also say the administration "intentionally misled" the public in going to war.



U.S. Labor Against the War had rallied its affiliates and supporters to press for the AFL-CIO to take an unambiguous stand for an end to the occupation and return of all U.S. troops. Widespread antiwar and anti-occupation sentiment among the delegates became even more evident when USLAW and Pride at Work, the AFL-CIO constituency group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered union members (also affiliated with USLAW) hosted a reception for Iraqi union leaders attending the convention as guests. The reception, which took place after the plenary on Monday, drew more than 150 delegates and guests, including top officials of a number of unions.

The convention action comes on the heels of a 26-city U.S. tour by six Iraqi trade union leaders from three of Iraq's major labor federations organized by U.S. Labor Against the War in mid-June. The Iraqi union leaders were unanimous in their call for an immediate end to the U.S. occupation, describing it as a source of instability, violence and terrorism in Iraq. (For more about the tour, visit the USLAW website at www.uslaboragainstwar.org.)


The resolution pays tribute to the troops in Iraq and says, ". . . they deserve a commitment from our country's leaders to bring them home rapidly. . . ." It accuses the Bush administration of misinforming the American people about the reasons for going to war and about the reality on the ground since it launched the invasion. It calls for expanded benefits for veterans and protection for workers affected by military base closings. The resolution also heralds the courage demonstrated by Iraqi workers and unions. It calls for full respect for the right of Iraqi workers to freely organize and bargain in unions of their choice and unconditional cancellation of the foreign debt and reparations accumulated by Iraq during the Hussein regime. It pledges continuing solidarity in concert with the international trade union movement with the workers of Iraq ". . . as they lead the struggle for an end to the violence and a more just and democratic nation."



Adoption of this resolution represents the first time in its 50 year history that the federation has taken a position squarely in opposition to a major U.S. foreign policy or military action.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Resolution #53 The War in Iraq



Submitted by the Executive Council, as amended from the floor and adopted by the delegates to the AFL-CIO Convention in Chicago, July 26, 2005



The AFL-CIO supports the brave men and women deployed in Iraq, which include our members in all branches of the armed services.

Our soldiers-the men and women risking their lives in Iraq-come from America's working families. They are our sons and daughters, our sisters and brothers, our husbands and wives. They deserve to be properly equipped with protective body gear and up-armored vehicles. And they deserve leadership that fully values their courage and sacrifice. Most importantly, they deserve a commitment from our country's leaders to bring them home rapidly. An unending military presence will waste lives and resources, undermine our nation's security and weaken our military.


We have lost more than 1,700 brave Americans in Iraq to date, and Iraqi civilian casualties are in the thousands. In recent months, the insurgency increasingly has focused its terror on the Iraqi people, engaging in a deliberate campaign to frustrate their aspirations to take control of their own destiny. These aspirations were clearly demonstrated earlier this year when Iraqis defied widespread intimidation and escalating violence by turning out in the millions to elect a new Iraqi interim government tasked with writing a constitution. The AFL-CIO applauds the courage of the Iraqi people and unequivocally condemns the use of terror in Iraq and indeed anywhere in the world.



No foreign policy can be sustained without the informed consent of the American people. The American people were misinformed before the war began and have not been informed about the reality on the ground and the very difficult challenges that lie ahead.

It is long past time for the Bush administration to level with the American people and for Congress to fulfill its constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities. The AFL-CIO supports the call from members of Congress for the establishment of benchmarks in the key areas of security, governance, reconstruction and internationalization.



Since the beginning of the war almost two-and-a-half years ago, the AFL-CIO has emphasized the support and participation of a broad coalition of nations and the United Nations is vital to building a democratic Iraq. Greater security on the ground remains an unmet precondition for such efforts to succeed. The AFL-CIO calls on the international community to help the Iraqi people build its capacity to maintain law and order through a concerted international effort to train Iraqi security and police forces.


Future efforts to rebuild the country are hampered by the weight of the massive foreign debt accumulated under the Saddam Hussein regime. The AFL-CIO calls for cancellation of Saddam's foreign debt without any conditions imposed upon the people of Iraq, who suffered under the regime that was supported by these loans. Further, the AFL-CIO calls for the cancellation of reparations imposed as a result of wars waged by Saddam Hussein's regime and the return of all Iraqi property and antiquities taken during the war and occupation.


The bedrock of any democracy is a strong, free, democratic labor movement.



That is true in the United States and Iraq.



Our returning troops should be afforded all resources and services available to meet their needs. Our members should return to their jobs, with seniority and benefits.



The AFL-CIO calls on Congress and President Bush to expand benefits for veterans and assist those affected by military base closings, including a G.I. Bill for returning Iraq veterans and a Veterans Administration housing program that meets current needs.

The AFL-CIO supports the efforts of Iraqi workers to form independent labor unions. In the absence of an adequate labor law, the AFL-CIO calls on the Iraqi government, as well as domestic and international companies operating in Iraq, to respect internationally recognized International Labor Organization standards that call for protecting the right of workers to organize free from all government and employer interference and the right to organize and bargain collectively in both the public and private sectors. These rights must be extended to include full equality for working women.



The AFL-CIO condemns the fact that Saddam's decree No. 150 issued in 1987 that abolished union rights for workers in the extensive Iraqi public sector has not been repealed. Under current laws, payroll deductions for union dues are not even permitted. The AFL-CIO calls on the Iraqi government to place as a top priority the adoption of a new labor law that conforms to international labor standards to replace the old anti-worker laws and decrees.



Despite legal obstacles, Iraq's workers and their institutions are already leaders in the struggle for democracy. Trade unionists are being targeted for their activism, and some have paid for their valor with their lives. The AFL-CIO condemns these brutal acts of intimidation.



The AFL-CIO has a proud history of solidarity with worker movements around the world in their opposition to tyranny. In concert with the international trade union movement, the AFL-CIO will continue to provide our full solidarity to Iraq's workers as they lead the struggle for an end to the violence and a more just and democratic nation.


U.S. Labor Against War (USLAW)

www.uslaboragainstwar.org
Email:

PMB 153
1718 "M" Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20036
Messages: 202-521-5265