Another Israel: dissident voices from Israel

12th March 2008, 7:00pm, NUT, Hamilton House, Mabledon Place, off Euston Road, London NW1


Speakers include

* Michel Warschawski (founder of the Alternative Information Centre),
* Eyal Weizman (architect, author of The Hollow Land)
* Eyal Sivan (film-maker of award-winning documentaries on Palestine-Israel)
* Daphna Baram (journalist, author of Disenchantment: The Guardian and Israel)
* Matan Cohen (from Israeli 'Anarchists Against The Wall')
* Judith Keshet Israeli Writer and Activist

Iran’s trade unionists call out from the prison cells

Iranian trade unionists Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi are experiencing terrible conditions in prison, with the regime showing the utmost contempt for their welfare. The pair, alongside almost a hundred of student activists, have been locked up by an unpopular regime cracking down on a rising tide of popular discontent.

While the media in Britain portrays Iranian politics as a battle between Islamist ‘conservatives’ and more liberal ‘reformists’ like former president Mohammad Khatami, in fact the divisions in Iran go deeper than disputes between different sections of the elite. A new left is shaking Iranian society.

Independent trade unions and social movements have rejected both the politics of the regime and the empty ‘democratic’ promises of US imperialism, and are waging a desperate struggle for a democracy enshrining workers’, women’s, LGBT and minority nationalities’ rights.

It appears that repression has stepped up in the last few months, with massive reprisals against the student movement. Hundreds bravely demonstrated at sites including Tehran University in December, raising slogans such as “No to imperialist war, death to the dictator “ and “The university is not an army garrison!”. After mass arrests, it is feared that as many as 81 of these students are still in jail.

One of those arrested, law student Ebrahim Latif Allahi, was murdered in Sanandaj prison. His family were told that “he had committed suicide in prison”, and that “his body has already been buried” – but they are convinced that he died during torture.

This assertion seems highly likely, given the similar brutal treatment of Mansour Osanloo, Iran’s best known trade unionist, who has repeatedly been kidnapped, assaulted and imprisoned for “attempts to jeopardise national security”. Currently serving a five-year sentence after leading bus workers’ strikes in Tehran, he has been blinded in one eye in prison.

The same goes for Mahmoud Salehi, the founding member of the trade Association of Bakery Workers in Saqez, Kurdistan. Imprisoned for his attempts to organise a union, he has fallen seriously ill in jail. But despite having been diagnosed with a blocked blood vessel in his heart, and the doctor’s recommendation that he be kept under medical supervision for at least a week, the prison authorities have sent Salehi back to his cell and denied him even the right to stay in the prison’s medical unit. In hospital Salehi's leg was cuffed to the bed, while his wife was threatened with arrest for protesting when a prison guard tried to assault her.

On March 6th Middle East Workers’ Solidarity activists participated in the international day of solidarity with Iranian trade unionists, which in Britain included mass leafleting at King’s Cross station in London (backed by the RMT railworkers’ union) as well as a demonstration at the Iranian Embassy.

Responding to the call of the International Transport workers’ Federation, trade unionists protested in solidarity with Osanloo and Salehi across the globe – from Australia to Ethiopia, from India to Indonesia, the international labour movement is slowly waking up to the cause of working-class resistance to the dictator Ahmedinejad.

► Part of our solidarity with our comrades in Iran is opposition to any war, bombing raids or sanctions, which can only serve to undermine the workers’ movement. MEWS activists will be leafleting the Stop the War demo on March 15th and collecting money for Iranian student organisations. Contact middleeastworkerssolidarity@googlemail.com
for more info – why not join us?

News in brief

►iraq – The leader of Iraq's journalists' union, Shihab al-Tamimi, has died in hospital. He was shot in the chest on February 23rd, and as a result died of heart attack. An independent journalist working for many local newspapers, al-Tamimi was a fierce critic of Iraq's sectarian militias and called for an end to the civil war. He is the 270th Iraqi journalist to have been killed in the violence since the 2003 invasion.

►jordan – 200 Vietnamese migrant workers, mostly women, struck for more than two weeks in protest at being forced to work long hours for just £50 per month, when they had been promised a rate of £100.
The footwear machinists’ strike was repressed by the Jordanian police, who sided with the security guards and joined in beating the workers. This despite the fact that the Jordanian Labour Ministry investigators had found the workers to be starving and bruised.
The workers, who were taken to Jordan by a Vietnamese agency, are demanding that they be allowed to return home.

►lebanon – Unions seem likely to force Prime Minister Siniora to grant an increase in the minimum wage. The unions are complaining that the minimum wage (on which one-third of Lebanese subsist) has been frozen for ten years, with the result that purchasing power fell 15 per cent last year. With a mounting £22 billion public debt and chronic power shortages in working-class areas, they say that Siniora is presiding over economic disaster.

US dockers call for strike to end occupation of Iraq

A motion passed by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union conference

FOR WORKERS' ACTION TO STOP THE WAR

WHEREAS: On May 1, 2003, at the ILWU Convention in San Francisco
resolutions were passed calling for an end to the war and occupation
in Iraq; and

WHEREAS: ILWU took the lead among labor unions in opposing this bloody
war and occupation for imperial domination; and

WHEREAS: Many unions and the overwhelming majority of the American
people now oppose this bipartisan and unjustifiable war in Iraq and
Afghanistan but the two major political parties, Democrats and
Republicans continue to fund the war; and

WHEREAS: Millions worldwide have marched and demonstrated against the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but have been unable to stop the wars; and

WHEREAS: ILWU's historic dock actions,

1) like the refusal of Local 10 longshoremen to load bombs for the
military dictatorship in Chile in 1978 and military cargo to the
Salvadoran military dictatorship in 1981 and

2) the honoring of the teachers' union antiwar picket May 19, 2007
against SSA in the port of Oakland stand as a limited but shining
example of how to oppose these wars; and

WHEREAS: The spread of war in the Middle East is threatened with U. S.
air strikes in Iran or possible military intervention in Syria or the
destabilized Pakistan;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That it is time to take labor's protest to a more powerful level of
struggle by calling on unions and working people in the U. S. and
internationally to mobilize for a "No Peace No Work Holiday" May 1,
2008 for 8 hours to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation
in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U. S. troops from the
Middle East; and

FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED:

That a clarion call from the ILWU be sent with an urgent appeal for
unity of action to the AFL-CIO, the Change to Win Coalition and all of
the international labor organizations to which we are affiliated to
bring an end to this bloody war once and for all.

Submitted by:

ILWU Local 10

passed overwhelmingly after thorough debate

If you need any further information or wish to send messages of support and solidarity please contact Bob McEllrath, International President, ILWU, 1188 Franklin Street, San Francisco, California 94109.

Tel: (+1 415) 775 0533 Fax: (+1 415) 775 1302. Email: robert.mcellrath@ilwu.org

Messages of support and solidarity should also be sent to ILWU Local 10 President Melvin Mackay
fax (+1 415) 441 0610 and/or melmackay@aol.com

Please send copies to dockers@gn.apc.org (sacked Liverpool dockers)

Israeli jets bomb Palestinian trade union HQ

On the night of February 28th Israeli jets levelled the five-storey Gaza headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)with three heavy F-16 missiles.

The "Folk House building" in Gaza City had been used for union-administered health care as well as organising. But this fresh Israeli atrocity has changed all that.

The complete destruction of the building not only means severe hardship for Palestinian trade unionists, but the death of one Palestinian and 37 other casualties, many of them children. It badly damaged numerous homes, and destroyed the area's electricity and water supply.

The attack came as part of Israel's continuing "collective punishment" of Gaza, which in one four-day period killed one hundred and ten Palestinians, one third of them children.

"The occupation doesn't need any justifications to commit crimes against Palestinians," said Nabil al-Mabhouh, acting head of the PGFTU in Gaza. But the building was targeted because "we at PGFTU are supporting the rights of tens of thousands of Palestinian workers."

The PGFTU has put out a call for solidarity, commenting "We call for an appropriate and effective response from the international trade unions and the International Labour Organisation to put compel Israel to compensate the PGFTU for the destruction of the Folk House in Gaza."

- Demonstrate against the Israeli onslaught - 4pm, Saturday 8th March, Downing Street, London (Westminster tube)

International day of action for trade unionists in Iran

Demonstrate for Mansour Osanloo, Mahmoud Salehi and union rights in Iran

On Thursday 6 March there will be a trade union demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy in London as part of a worldwide day of action against the repression and harassment of trade unionists in Iran.

The RMT railworkers' union has called for activists to meet for leafletting King's Cross station from 7:30am, hopefully covering as many of the exits as possible.

Furthermore, a demonstration will be held from 12:30 to 1:30pm outside the Iranian Embassy at 16 Prince's Gate, London SW7 1PT.

The international day of action has been called by the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF). Here is a location map for the event.

Egyptian workers step up

An article on recent working-class struggles in Egypt by Sacha Ismail of Workers' Liberty

The class struggle in Egypt, rising since 2006, has reached a new pitch in the last few weeks.

On Sunday 16 February, more than 10,000 workers from the Misr (Egypt) Spinning and Weaving Company textile mill in the Nile Delta city of Mahalla el-Kubra, north of Cairo, staged a mass demonstration against prices rices, low wages and the regime of Hosni Mubarak, joined by thousands more working-class people from the town. The Mahalla workers' action was followed by similar, smaller-scale actions and protests by workers across Egypt.

The Mahalla factory, which employs 27,000 people, has been the site of huge workers’ struggles since December 2006, when nearly the entire workforce went on strike over withheld bonuses. In September last year, 15,000 workers were on strike again over profit-sharing, safety and bonuses, leading to a confrontation with riot police; and there have been struggles over issues including services at the company hospital and the provision of free bread to workers.


The difference this time is that the workers’ action has been much more directly political. In previous struggles, there were appeals to Mubarak’s government to intervene; on Sunday, according to California-based journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy (one of the very few sources about strikes in Egypt), workers shouted slogans including "Down, down Hosni Mubarak! Your rule is shit!" and "Gamal Mubarak, tell your dad we hate him!" (a reference to Mubarak’s son and heir apparent).

Hamalawy also reports that the Mahalla workers attempted, before being blocked by police, to organise a demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza: evidence of impressive politicisation, even if, like Hamalawy's blog, such actions are polluted by Arab nationalist chauvinism against Israel.

The target for the workers' action was the convening, in the context of big increases in the price of basic commodities, of the National Council of Wages, which sets Egypt’s minimum wage. The minimum wage has been held at not much more than £3 a month since 1984, despite soaring inflation; the Mahalla workers have demanded £112 a month, while the representatives of Egypt’s official General Federation of Trade Unions on the Council have been calling for £55. Including profit sharing, a Mahalla worker currently makes about £40 a month. The government has now announced that the rate will be raised to about £25, making further protests very likely.

Even on official estimates, a fifth of Egypt's population, 13 million people, lives below the poverty line. As another of the slogans from the Mahalla demonstration put it: "We are sick of eating beans while the rich eat chickens and pigeons".

When protests began in the factory on 16 February, the bosses once again called in riot police, but the workers stormed the gates and drove them off before marching into town.

This inspiring class struggle has enormous significance. The textile workers are in many ways the vanguard of the Egyptian working class. The December 2006 strike was followed by action in many other sectors – including rail workers, nurses, cement workers, binmen and tax collectors. Cairo’s leading independent and broadly liberal newspaper, al-Masri al-Youm, estimates that 226 sit-ins, strikes, hunger strikes and workers’ demonstrations took place in 2006; Hamalawy estimates 387 actions in the first six months of 2007.

This time, the Mahalla struggle has quickly been followed with action by other textile workers, by Suez Canal workers, train drivers, nurses and electricity company lawyers, as well as by working-class protests against housing costs. Meanwhile, doctors are threatening strike action on 15 March if the health ministry does not come up with a better pay offer; and real estate tax collectors, 55,000 of whom went on strike and occupied downtown Cairo last year, have been fighting to establish organisation independent from the official trade unions and discussing the possibility of an independent union.

This is the first time that large-scale workers’ demonstrations have raised clear anti-government slogans since the bread riots against the regime of Anwar Sadat in 1977. And the entry of the working class onto the political stage means that Mubarak is being challenged from the left, and not just by the Muslim Brotherhood, whose activists are also struggling against severe repression.

The Brotherhood remains what it always has been: a deeply reactionary and counter-revolutionary Islamist organisation. Yet it is also the biggest and best organised opposition force in Egypt; it does fight repression by the regime (for instance by mobilising thousands of students to protest against the detention of academics at the end of February) and sometimes gives demagogic support to workers' struggles.

Nonetheless, according to Hamalawy, the Mahalla action was fomented not by Islamists but by left activists inside the factory (which is not to say that the Brotherhood has no influence among the workers, of course).

The growth of mass workers' struggles in Egypt signifies between by far the biggest Arab working class and a deeply oppressive regime which is one of the US’s key allies, receiving $1.3 billion dollars a year in military aid, for instance. It means that both Egypt and Iran, the largest economies in the Middle East, are wracked by class struggle – holding out the prospect, distant but real, of workers’ revolution to sweep away all the region’s ruling classes, whether pro or anti-US.

As Hossam el-Hamalawy put it in September: "During my phone conversations with the strikes leaders and activists inside the company, they always ask me if people in America and the world have heard about the strike." We need to make sure the world knows, and that its labour movements mobilise solidarity.

- Hossam el-Hamalawy's blog: arabist.net/arabawy

- LabourStart coverage of Egypt: www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/show_news.pl?country=Egypt

Iranian Workers' Bulletin

The January/February issue of the Iranian Workers' Bulletin, which features in-depth coverage of the Iranian labour movement, is now available.

This month's issue features extensive coverage of the situation of imprisoned trade unionists such as Tehran Bus Workers' Union leader Mansour Osanloo as well as Mahmoud Salehi, organiser of the Bakery Workers' Trade Association. Both are suffering severe health problems due to the negligence of the Iranian regime as the two are kept in captivity.

The bulletin also has news of 5,000 workers at the state owned Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company taking repeated strike action and forming a new independent union, along with the one-day action action of 3,000 Alborz tyre factory workers who had not been paid for four months.

Click here to see the bulletin

Defend Iraqi oil unions!

AusIraq in Australia has launched a petition to support Iraq's oil unions, now under attack from the Iraqi government. Download an adapted version of it here: please circulate and get signatures.

IUS London meeting May 7th

Iraq Union Solidarity is hosting a public meeting on Monday May 7th, with Martin Thomas leading off on the Shia movements in Iraq, after which there will be plenty of time for debate and discussion.

The meeting on the 7th starts at 7:30pm, and is being held at the Ship on Borough High St., nr. Borough or London Bridge tube stops.