Iraq's trade unions: Tender shoots in weed-bound soil

May 4th 2006 | IRBIL
From The Economist

Attacked by insurgents, hobbled by factions, Iraq's unions fight for air

AN ELECTRICIAN in Basra plunges to his death while repairing a pylon, felled by a sniper's bullet. A group of construction workers are stopped at a bogus checkpoint near Baquba, north-east of Baghdad, and then taken off their bus and shot. A secondary-school teacher in Mosul is gunned down as she leaves for work in defiance of insurgents' demands that she stay at home. These apparently unrelated attacks, in different parts of Iraq, occurred on the same morning last month. They would have gone largely unnoticed but for the fact that the ten people killed that day were all members of the country's increasingly vocal trade-union movement.

According to the Iraqi Workers' Federation (IWF), more than 2,000 of its members have been killed as a direct result of the economic scorched-earth policy waged by the insurgency. Assaults on oil pipelines and electricity substations have left a trail of human casualties. Teachers, health-care workers and civil servants are also considered “legitimate” targets.

It is not just the rank-and-file who are at risk: union leaders have been picked out for assassination. In the most notorious case, in January 2005, Hadi Saleh, the founding father of the post-Saddam union movement and president of the Iraqi Federation of Workers' Trade Unions, was tortured and then shot by gunmen, thought to be survivors of the former regime.

Iraqi unions had been battered for some 30 years by the Baathists, who had eradicated any organisation that resisted party rule. After Saddam Hussein's removal in April 2003, a new, independent movement came swiftly to life. The IWF, the teachers' union and other associations now lay claim to up to 1m members. They have notched up a series of successes, challenging the hiring and wage policies of foreign-owned contractors in the oil industry (the privatisation of which they strongly oppose), as well as winning extra security protection for reconstruction workers in Baghdad and central Iraq.

But at a recent meeting in Irbil with British trade unionists, Iraq's union leaders made urgent pleas for solidarity and help from their comrades in the international labour movement. “We will always fight to protect our members' rights,” said Hadi Ali, the IWF's vice-president. “It doesn't mean we are against change...We are also all fighting to transform Iraq into a sustainable democracy, and unions may well be the most powerful weapon in that battle.”

It is not just the chronic insecurity that is making life tough for Iraqi workers and their representatives. Unionists accuse the new Iraqi authorities of exploiting Saddam-era laws to suppress their new-found independence. Making matters worse, there are reports that Islamist parties linked to the Shia-led government are trying to create client, sectarian unions.

Particular concern is caused by Decree 8750, passed last August by the interim administration of Ibrahim al-Jaafari. This provides for state control of the finances of all of Iraq's trade unions, and is seen as threatening their independence. A free trade-union movement, argue members, would do much to help the country avoid the ethnic and sectarian disputes at grassroots level that threaten to escalate into civil war. Historically, both the members and leaders of Iraq's unions have cut across ethnic and religious lines.

Hashmiya Mohsen, the feisty head of the Basra branch of the electricity workers' union, lists other ways in which independent, democratic unions can contribute to reconstruction: the inclusion of marginalised groups (women, for instance); the acceptance of elections as a part of life; and lessening the suspicion between local workers and foreign employers.

But first, says Ms Mohsen, one of very few female union bosses, the new prime minister, Jawad al-Maliki, should repeal Decree 8750. Determined to keep the idea of independence alive, she argues that getting rid of the decree “would be the best sign yet that Iraq's unions are seen as partners and not obstacles to our future.”