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Last Updated: Jul 14, 2008 - 9:44:58 AM |
July could be crucial for Iraqi trade unions. The Iraqi government is
pressing ahead with plans to hold elections - which could see the state
choose workers' representatives and funnel the country's diverse trade
union federations into one state-managed federation.
The prospect of elections raises numerous concerns. Not least of these
is that the election supervisory body is government-appointed, and
apparently has the mandate to determine the outcome of the election.
Another is that the electoral process does not allow all the unions to
stand for election or to fully participate in the election process.
Public sector unions are excluded altogether. However, the Iraqi
authorities say that the process is a necessary precursor to the
official legalisation of unions in Iraq.
But does it really? Trade unions were outlawed under Saddam from 1987
onwards and re-outlawed by Paul Bremer and successive occupied Iraqi
administrations until today. Or is it an attempt to impose a social
peace on working-class organisations that have no intention of
accepting privatisation measures pushed by the NGOs, the US State
Department and DfiD and supported by Iraqi authorities? These are
unions that have been working to keep public services public for the
past five years.
The second milestone is the possibility of the first steps towards
privatisation of the country's oil reserves. This will happen when six
oil giants sign technical service contracts which are reported to
contain extension and right of refusal clauses, giving them the
potential to be converted into longer-term deals.
Oil privatisation is a red line for the unions in occupied Iraq, and a
red rag to the workers on the front line, who have vowed to resist any
privatisation of what they see as national assets.
The Bush administration's top benchmark, the Iraqi oil law, remains off
the statute books, five deadlines and two years since its first draft.
Yet the Iraqi cabinet keeps threatening to pass it, despite the lack of
a parliamentary majority backing it.
The law would allow regions, represented by sectarian elites originally
empowered in 2003, to sign their own contracts, create their own oil
laws and develop their own industries, without democratic oversight.
This, critics say, could lead to the break-up of the country and create
new sectarian, economic and political facts on the ground. One Iraqi
oil company manager previously employed by Shell told me, "I see the
future of Iraq as the United Arab Emirates... separate states."
While this is good news for oil companies seeking the best deals and
playing regions against one another, the long-term implications for
stability and reconciliation in Iraq could be disastrous. At a time
when one of the most combative unions in the country - the Iraqi
federation of oil unions - is steadfast in its opposition to oil
privatisation, the Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani is busy
dismissing the 26,000-strong organisation as "a militia", "involved in
oil smuggling" and labelling its leaders "unelected".
Last year, arrest warrants were issued against union leaders, following
the announcement of strike action by an IFOU-affiliated union at the
Iraqi Pipeline Company in Basra. The warrants have not yet been
rescinded. Iraqi troops were also sent into the oil fields.
Furthermore, last year the oil minister ordered managers at the
Southern Oil Company to de-recognise the IFOU, withdraw all facilities,
and shut down the union's headquarters. Management refused. The union
is represented in decision-making at the highest level within the
company.
Last month, the Iraqi oil minister ordered the transfer of eight union
leaders and four managers at the Southern Oil Company to workplaces in
Baghdad and Nassiriyeh. All are critics of oil privatisation. The move
would see trade unionists and their families uprooted from their homes
and communities in Basra and moved to the al-Daurra neighbourhood of
Baghdad, well known for its sectarian violence and occupation-trained
militias.
The IFOU enjoys the support of the UK's TUC and the USA's AFL-CIO, both
of which have written letters to the Iraqi government expressing grave
concern over the treatment of the union's leadership and the
state-managed elections. But the media have largely ignored the story,
preferring to focus on the oil companies' return to Iraq. They are
missing one of the few positive, success stories of co-operation,
empowerment and unity in an occupied and fractured Iraq - and the
under-reported Iraq of working class heroes and unarmed resistance
fighters standing up to the might of Big Oil, and the sectarian elites,
occupation authorities and mercenary companies queuing up behind.
Iraq's unions need our solidarity for the long summer of discontent
before them.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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