Let’s
Fight for the Unity of the Working Class of Iran!
Class governments and capitalists are afraid of
workers' strikes. We saw an example of this during the revolution of 1979 in
Iran. We saw the changes that were created by the potential power of the workers’
guild. They were able to send the Shah's regime to the dustbin of history with
their nationwide strike over their demands for better living conditions and job
security, the right to strike, and the right to establish trade unions. The
governments that came to power after the revolution under the guise of
supporting the oppressed and poor were aware of this power. They considered the
organisational power of the working class as a means to shake the country's
economic foundations and political pillars. With their class perspective, they
were afraid of the danger of the unity of Iran's labouring society and sought
to prevent it by using underhanded methods to create division among the working
class. At the beginning of the revolution, Iran’s Labour Law had to consider
many workers' rights. The working class, through its struggle and its decisive
role in the revolution, imposed its demands on the post-revolutionary
governments. But at the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, President
Rafsanjani‘s mafia government, under the pretext of Iran's reconstruction and
undoing the war damage, adopted the destructive and anti-Iranian policy of
neoliberalism. Rafsanjani followed the economic orders of the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund to loot the Iranian economy through privatisation
and by suppressing the struggles of workers and violating their legal rights.
This destructive policy is still being implemented in Iran.
It was customary for the government and
employers to enter into formal or permanent contracts with workers for
permanent jobs. However, the number of these contracts decreased due to the
weakness of the labour movement to such an extent that today, this type of
contract includes only a third of all contracts signed with the workers in Iran.
Next to that, there is another type of contract called direct temporary
contracts. These are negotiated only for a short period of time or for the
realisation of certain projects. Such contracts comprise approximately 14% of
all contracts. And finally, there are also contracts called a “temporary
agreement.” Such contracts make up 57% of contracts. In practice, there are
one-year, three-month, and even one-month contracts that include jobs where the
nature of work is continuous and permanent. By implementing these types of
contracts for a limited employment period, which can be extended after the
expiration, the employers use modern slavery with the support of the government
and its labour laws.
After the eight-year war and under the
presidency of Rafsanjani, in order to establish the law of modern slavery and
serve the neoliberal policy of the World Bank, a new interpretation of the labour
law against the working class was announced. According to this interpretation,
if a time clause is included in the contracts for jobs that even have the
nature of continuous work, the contract will no longer be permanent. This insidious
interpretation legalised the use of temporary contracts for jobs of a permanent
nature. This interpretation was continued during the presidency of the
reformist Khatami. And from then on, the employers transfer the hiring process
to the private companies. Now the private companies conclude contracts with the
workers and then rent them to employers.
The same method is also applied in big capitalist countries as Germany.
With the effort of the chancellor Gerhard Schröder
from the "leftist" social democratic faction, the Ministry of Labour
was dissolved and replaced with organisations or job searching centres that
mediate between workers and capitalist employers. Through such a sinister plot,
they have absolved the capitalists of any kind of responsibility. They have
created private companies that are responsible for providing manpower to and
signing contractual agreements with employers and the government.
The first concern of the workers in Iran is the
lack of job security because at the end of each year, the private employer can
fire the employees. This arbitrary firing is used by the government of the
Islamic Republic in its assumed capacity as an employer. In this way, the lives
and livelihoods of workers are in the hands of private companies and of the
capitalist government. We are facing the silence of the Iranian bourgeois
opposition, even in cyberspace, on these violations of rights. These violations
are not just crimes against a person or a violation of the human rights of a
few political prisoners; rather, they are a violation of the human rights of
millions of people who are forced by economic necessity to do very hard work as
de facto slaves. The bourgeois opposition of Iran has closed its eyes to all
these crimes against the working class. Even during its protests for “the
realisation of human rights or the defence of political prisoners”, the
bourgeois opposition is silent on the situation of the labourers and does not
even mention the struggles of imprisoned workers and activists. The protests of
the bourgeois forces that have taken place under the demagogic and populist mottos
of “All together” and "Women, Life, Freedom" are alien to the fate of
Iran and its working class. The workers should never trust these hypocritical
bourgeois forces and should seek to consolidate and organise their fragile
forces so that they can achieve their legal rights.
There are no independent labour unions in Iran.
This is the weakness of the working class. The struggle for the formation of
independent trade unions is the first promising field of struggle for this
class. Essentially, a trade union is an organisation in which workers unite as
a class to express their solidarity. The working class establishes trade unions
to create a bulwark against the class that owns the means of production. In
this way, the working class not only defends itself against the constant
attacks of the capitalists, but it also directly attacks the exploiting class.
Through trade unions, the labourers try to realise general rights and improve
the most basic working and living conditions such as wages, working hours,
continuous and permanent contracts, work safety, work leave, elimination of
temporary contracts, the right of assembly, the right to strike, etc. Trade
unions are born out of the objective needs of the labourers in the class
struggle. They represent the most basic level of worker-organisations based on
their strength and class consciousness.
Trade union activism has a much longer history
than working class party activism, because the daily realisation of economic
awareness is much easier to achieve than gaining political awareness in the
spectrum of the working class. A long time is still needed for the working
class not only to wage its independent economic struggle but also to end its
political role as the fifth wheel of bourgeois politics and emerge as an
independent political organisation of workers that has political and class
goals. For this reason, from the very beginning of labour unions, this
dialectical difference was evident in the two fields of struggle of the working
class. These two struggles should not be put into one pot and stirred as this
would distort their different levels and distinctions.
Why is working in unions necessary?
Work in mass organisation is one of the most
important areas of a revolutionary's activities. This practical struggle
provides a means to know how close the world view and political action of an
involved individual are to the objective reality of the life of the working
class. This participation in the real struggle of the working class will
distance the revolutionary and communist person from subjectivity and revolutionism and will keep him grounded in reality. Work
in a mass organisation also forms the necessary foundation for any
revolutionary development. Without the energetic support of a large section of
society and without the sympathy—or at least the benevolent neutrality—of the
rest of the masses, no revolutionary insurrection can establish a stable,
surviving government. To gain this sympathy and popular support, especially
from the working class, revolutionaries must actively communicate and transfer
their worldview to the working masses and demonstrate the validity and
application of it in the daily lives of the labourers. Revolutionaries must
work where the masses are, but above all, they must work where the working
class is.
Anyone who wants to work among the working
masses should not shy away from union activities. The necessity of trade unions
for the revolutionary struggle relates even more to their actual position in
the working class than on their proletarian essence. But working in a trade
union does not mean that a trade union is the party of the working class, nor
that it should take on the party duties. Activities in trade unions are
undertaken to realise the rights of workers against the capitalists, to give
the members experience and knowledge, to raise the level of their class
consciousness in practice, to strengthen their self-confidence and belief in
union power, to strengthen the understanding of democratic work, and to create
a material basis for social transformation in society as a whole.
As Lenin stated in “Left-Wing” Communism, An
Infantile Disorder:
“To refuse to work in the reactionary trade
unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers
under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie,
the labour aristocrats, or workers who have become completely bourgeois” (
Engels’s letter to Marx in 1858 about the British workers).
The experience of all labour struggles around
the world shows the importance of the social roles of independent trade unions.
Unfortunately in Iran, the working class is deprived of the right to have an
independent labour union. In the first place, the labourers of Iran must fight
for the recognition of this natural right, which has a social and historical
background and will certainly be supported by the vast majority of the working
class. When the working class engages in the trade union struggle, then the
workers will benefit from educational facilities, labour education at
universities, permanent strike funds and legal support from prominent labour
lawyers, press activities, support from intellectuals and academics, and many
other sources. We have to fight to achieve the aforementioned labour rights in
Iran. This fight has the support of the nation. Even among the authorities of
the Islamic Republic, after the protests against the mandatory hijab and the
Guidance Patrol, there are whispers that if the ruling class does not listen to
the demands of the labourers and protesters, then they will have to face
widespread violent consequences.
Society is made up of different classes, and it
is impossible to manage society with the theory of "insiders and
outsiders", "believers and infidels". Every individual in the
country is a member of the nation, and the wealth of Iran belongs to the entire
society. The assets of the country cannot be confiscated for the benefit of
"insiders". The rhetoric of “insider, outsider” and “believer,
infidels” from the beginning of Iran’s revolutionary period are dead today. An
opinion is forming among government officials that it is necessary to create
opportunities for dialogue with various sections of the society, including
teachers, women, retirees, workers, etc., so that the government does not lose
power as a result of resorting to violence. This current situation, which has
been one of the achievements of recent events, has created a favourable
environment to emphasise the desire to establish independent labour unions even
more so than before. The condition for the success of this demand is to avoid
mixing the tasks of the working class party and of gaining political power with
the tasks and capacity of a labour union. If the deviant and anarcho-syndicalist ideas of the "left" organisations
dominate the trade unions activities, and if there are adventurers who try to
promote the idea of gaining political power through the creation of workers'
councils (soviets) and mislead the struggle of working masses, the opportunity
for the creation of independent trade unions will not be used optimally.
The first barrier that stands in the way of
Iran's labour struggles is the lack of a labour union, whose task is primarily
to try to improve the living conditions of workers. There are some petty
bourgeois subjectivists who think the “bolder” and more extreme slogans they
put forward, the more revolutionary they are! They support the "one-day
revolution" theory. This shows their lack of trust in the masses and lack
of understanding of the revolutionary process. They do not grasp that it takes
some time for the struggle of the masses to grow and to gain strength in both
economic and political fields and to educate the workers to join their own
independent party. They are regularly engaged in misleading propaganda among
the working class and want to turn every justified and just strike into a
"social revolution". These mindless leftists do not understand that,
in the end, the result of a successful strike is a compromise with the
employer, not the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Those engaged in the sabotage of the labour
movement destroy the unity and integrity of the working class. They fail to
understand that social struggles have different levels, and therefore, people
should be organised in various organisations according to the interest of their
strata. The struggle of the working class in trade unions is a struggle in the
economic field. The specific demands of the trade unions are not separate from
the general demands of the people. Therefore, the workers in the trade unions
also defend the most general demands of the people. But this kind of support
does not change the nature of the trade union to a political party. The
struggle of the working class against the inhumane sanctions on Iran is a
general democratic struggle, which is not contrary to the trade union demands
of workers. The attempt at the confiscation and management of a factory, which
will be a failure from the very beginning, is a destructive and deviant action.
The call to the workers by some political groups to seize political power and
to establish councils (soviets) in the factories, instead of a call for the
establishment of independent trade unions, is a deviant and destructive call
that hurts the organisations of the working masses. Such calls are approved by
the agents of the capitalist regime of the Islamic Republic who seek to disrupt
the unity of the working class.
Trade unions in Iran should not be formed on
the basis of ethnic affiliation. Ethnic national chauvinists in Iran want trade
unions to be formed based on ethnicity or nationality. Their intention is to
destroy the unity and integrity of the working class of Iran. Naturally, even
if they are not suspicious, their approach is deeply reactionary and anti-labour.
It should be fought against as the slogans of the psychic "lefts" for
the establishment of worker councils (soviets) instead of labour unions.
Iranian workers must fight for the establishment of a unified and independent
labour union which is widely accepted by the people. Our Party supports this
class and democratic demand that serves to democratise Iran's political
environment.
The Party of Labour of Iran (Toufan)