[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ilrtf] US Troops May Be Ordered to Crush Iraqi Unions

[Al Kagan]

Following up on Ricky's comments last night.

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>Subject: [ilrtf] US Troops May Be Ordered to Crush Iraqi Unions
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>US Troops May Be Ordered to Crush Iraqi Unions
>Saddam's Anti-Union Laws Still Remain
>
>Cleveland Citizen, December 5, 2004, publication of the Cleveland 
>Construction & Building Trades Council
>
>CHICAGO (PAI) -- The US-named Coalition Provisional Authority that 
>now runs Iraq will not change Iraqi labor law -- which severely 
>curtails unions -- for at least two years and, on October 16, banned 
>strikes, say two US unionists who traveled there.
>
>Freelance writer David Bacon, a Newspaper Guild member, and former 
>International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 
>Secretary-Treasurer Clarence Thomas, of California, said those 
>decisions left most Iraqi workers without union representation and 
>unable to legally strike.
>
>That's because Iraqi labor law bans unions in state-run companies, a 
>large share of the pre-war economy, they said.
>
>Should workers, despite the law, decide to organize and strike, U.S. 
>troops could be ordered to serve as strike breakers, if Iraqi police 
>are not available.
>
>Bacon and Thomas discussed their 6-day mid-October trip, mostly in 
>Baghdad but also to the al-Dawra oil refinery, in a telephone 
>interview before reporting on it to an October 24-25 conference of 
>U.S. Labor Against the War, held in Chicago.
>
>The conference occurred on the same weekend that at least 50,000 
>protesters, including some unionists -- such as those from Hospital 
>and Health Care Workers Local 1199 in New York -- marched in 
>Washington, demanding withdrawal of U.S. troops and repeal of the 
>Patriot Act, among other causes.
>
>"We saw no physical evidence of reconstruction in Iraq and we did 
>not see people working," Thomas said.  Bacon estimated Iraqi 
>unemployment at 70 percent.
>
>Thomas said their data came from "several labor organizations, 
>including the Workers' Democratic Trade Union Movement, which took a 
>significant role in opposing the bloody repression of Saddam's 
>regime," and the new Union of the Unemployed.
>
>The "old guard" of the Iraqi labor movement "was forced underground" 
>during Saddam Hussein's rule, he said.  "They resurfaced and are 
>putting into place an organized structure for all places where 
>workers are employed."
>
>Bacon said the new Iraqi assistant labor minister told them of the 
>strike ban and that Hussein's previous labor laws would stay intact 
>for at least two years.
>
>He added that "already low wages have been frozen" and 
>profit-sharing and bonuses were eliminated.  Thomas said the 
>refinery's workers earn $60 a month.
>
>A detailed e-mail question to the coalition authority, for comment 
>and confirmation of their statement, was not answered. 
>
>But an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based group of Iraqis in the U.S. protested, 
>in an Aug. 7 letter to President Bush, against plans to privatize 
>Iraqi state enterprises "by any party which is not a legitimate, 
>sovereign, democratically elected government" in Iraq.  That 
>confirms authority plans to sell off state-run firms.
>
>And on June 6, the authority issued a public notice in English and 
>Arabic, saying it "respects Iraqi laws."
>
>"This extends to Iraqi labor laws prescribing the conditions under 
>which employees of government instrumentalities and enterprises 
>continue to work," the notice added.
>
>Those are the laws, the two U.S. unionists said, that ban unions 
>from government-owned firms.
>
>"The forms of industrial and labor relations ultimately will be a 
>matter for the Iraqi people and the future Iraqi government to 
>decide," the authority's notice concluded.
>
>The Chicago meeting drew approximately 200 delegates who said they 
>represent "several million unionists, said co-chairs Gene Bruskin 
>and Robert Muhlenkamp.
>
>Teamsters Local 705 - the union's second-largest local and an early 
>foe of the war - hosted the Chicago conference.  Delegates voted to 
>protest the war and to campaign against George W. Bush's domestic 
>agenda, said Local 705 President Jerry Zero.
>
>"The war is not just in Iraq and not just in Afghanistan, it's in my 
>hometown and yours," Washington, D.C. Central Labor Council 
>President Jocelyn N. Williams told the Chicago conference in closing 
>remarks.
>
>"Why wouldn't labor be against the war on Americans who are out of 
>work, who are poor, who don't have access to health care or to good 
>education?  Why wouldn't labor be against the war on working people 
>(who are) harrassed, intimidated and fired for daring to speak up 
>for a voice at work?" Williams challenged.
>
>"Our goal is (to) build a national organization coalition for labor 
>and human rights in Iraq, and to support the movement to end the 
>war," Bruskin, Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO Food and Allied 
>Service Trades Department, said.
>
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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