Last year the International Labour Organisation (ILO) again sent a delegation to Iran and reached a new agreement with the Labour Ministry of Iran. This is a scandalous concession. The Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network therefore welcomes the move by a number of labour activists to expose this sinister move against truly independent labour organisations. They call on labour activists all over the world to support the Committee by signing this letter of qualified support. (March 25, 2005)
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In September 2004 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) again sent a delegation to Iran. This time it reached a new agreement with the Labour Ministry of Iran which was also supported by the Confederation of Employers' Societies of Iran and the pro-regime Labour House.
The main point about this agreement is that the ILO, in opposition to its position in 2002, has accepted that, following some changes in their rules and regulations, the Islamic Labour Councils will satisfy the conditions set out in Conventions 87 and 98. With this step the ILO will recognise the Iranian regime as being in compliance with two of its key conventions: No. 87, Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention (1948) and No. 98, Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention (1949).
This is the ‘reality' that many international organisations and governments have recognised since the ‘reformers' lost the seventh parliamentary elections in February 2002. Since the elections everyone has been busy making deals with the ‘pragmatist conservatives' and offering them considerable concessions. The ILO's climb-down is part of this trend. By reconsidering and lowering its standards the ILO has agreed to the Islamic Labour Councils and the Labour House having a central, rather than peripheral, role in the work of building ‘independent unions' in Iran.
We therefore welcome the move by a number of labour activists to expose this sinister move against truly independent labour organisations. The Committee in Pursuit of Free Labour Organisations in Iran has now collected over 4000 signatures in opposition to the ILO's surrender to the regime's fake ‘labour' organisations. We support the initiative of the Committee for upholding the right to set up truly independent workers' organisations. This is a correct and principled move by a small section of labour activists who are independent of all political parties and groups.
We believe, however, that the Committee should put more emphasis on exposing the class nature of the ILO and to prevent the workers developing any illusions in this class collaborationist organisation. The Committee should also adopt the right to strike and for workers' control over production and distribution as its central demands. On the organisational front, the Committee must emphasise the crucial importance of independence from the government and all political parties - organisationally, financially, in political outlook and daily activity. The ultimate success of the task of setting up truly independent labour organisations that can fight for the rights of all workers, and organise them into a force that can win real economic and political gains for them, depends on these conditions. We therefore give the Committee our qualified support and hope that it will push to establish these points as basic demands of the labour movement.
We call on all Iranian and international labour activists, and progressive organisations and individuals, to help strengthen the independent bloc within the Iranian labour movement against the ILO-regime front. We call on them to support the Committee by signing this letter and sending copies of their solidarity emails to:
a copy to us: pishroo@fastmail.fm
Mehdi Riazi (activist of Workers' Action Committee)
Alireza Bayani (welder and activist of Workers' Action Committee)