Worker rights in Iraq

A little known policy of the US occupation affirmed Saddam-era prohibitions on trade union organizing


Iraqi oil workers (AP photo, linked from BBC)

I read The Guardian pretty regularly, but I missed last week an incredible piece written by an Iraqi oil worker. ``Leave our country now: From the first days of the US-British invasion of Iraq, oil workers have resisted foreign occupation" details the struggle ordinary Iraqis face against the looting of their country and their livelihoods. This struggle is almost completely invisible in US media.

Hassan Juma'a Awad, general secretary of Iraq's Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers' Union writes,

We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes.

Saddam's secret police used to creep over the roofs into our homes at night; occupation troops now break down our doors in broad daylight. The media do not show even a fraction of the devastation that has engulfed Iraq. Journalists who dare to report the truth of what is happening have been kidnapped by terrorists. This serves the agenda of the occupation, which aims to eliminate witnesses to its crimes.

Workers in Iraq's southern oilfields began organising soon after British occupying forces invaded Basra. We founded our union, the Southern Oil Company Union, just 11 days after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. When the occupation troops stood back and allowed Basra's hospitals, universities and public services to be burned and looted, while they defended only the oil ministry and oilfields, we knew we were dealing with a brutal force prepared to impose its will without regard for human suffering. From the beginning, we were left in no doubt that the US and its allies had come to take control of our oil resources.

The occupation authorities have maintained many of Saddam's repressive laws, including the 1987 order which robbed us of basic union rights, including the right to strike. Today, we still have no official recognition as a trade union, despite having 23,000 members in 10 oil and gas companies in Basra, Amara, Nassiriya, and up to Anbar province. However, we draw our legitimacy from the workers, not the government. We believe unions should operate regardless of the government's wishes, until the people are able finally to elect a genuinely accountable and independent Iraqi government, which represents our interests and not those of American imperialism...

Deep Blade Journal has in the past covered the looting of Iraqi resources by the American Coalition Provisional Authority through its onerous regulations and orders, which have mostly persisted, leaving the current provisional government, and future constitutional process partly hamstrung by occupation.

Please see the 2003 Deep Blade Business of Iraq Reference Article for more history on these issues. This piece was prepared for the indefinitely-postponed US-Iraq Business Conference the University of Maine had planned to conduct with a group of looters known as the US-Iraq Business Alliance.

For even more background, see Naomi Klein, "Bagdad Year Zero", Harper's Magazine, September 2004 issue; and David Bacon, "Saddam's Labor Laws Live On", The Progressive, December 2003 issue.

Blog note:The Diplomatic Times Review is a recommended blog. Thanks to Munir Umrani, the blogger from Chicago who placed a trackback to my last post on Allawi and the Iraq PM game. A quick check of Diplomatic Times Review suggests it is fabulous. The tip for this posting came from DTR's link to Free Iraq, another blog covering news stories from Iraq with an anti-occupation orientation.