6-22-05, 9:30am
A group of trade union leaders representing various Iraqi labor unions called for the end of the US-led occupation at a press conference in Washington, DC early last week.
The trade unionists met with top US labor leaders and US lawmakers during their visit to Washington.
Their trip is part of a tour of the US to publicize the plight of Iraqi workers, who, they say, are caught between violent insurgents and US military forces.
Iraqi workers and trade union activists have been the target of terrorist bombings and assassinations as well as US military harassment, raids, arbitrary arrests, and incommunicado detentions without charge.
Adnan Rashed, executive officer of the Union of Mechanics, Printing and Metal Workers, an affiliate of Iraq's largest labor federation, the Iraq Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), told reporters that 10 activists in his union alone have been killed by terrorists while numerous others have faced anti-union violence from the same groups.
Rashed stressed the importance of organizing in improving the lives of workers but also in rebuilding Iraq.
This monumental task has been hindered by terrorist violence but also by US military forces and foreign companies working in Iraq.
The tour has been sponsored by United States Labor Against the War, a coalition of trade unionists who oppose the US war on Iraq.
Iraqi trade unionists also criticized laws imposed on Iraq by the US occupation authority, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) headed by Bush-appointee Paul Bremer.
Further, the CPA tried to privatize Iraq's economy, especially its oil industry, by legalizing 100% private and foreign ownership of Iraq's state-owned enterprises.
Iraqi unions oppose both measures and have called for close cooperation with the International Labor Organization to write a new labor law that protects the rights of Iraq's public sector workers.
Massive protests and security problems prevented Bremer form carrying out its plans for privatization, but the new coalition government seems headed down the privatization road.
Iraq's current industry minister and oil ministers have drawn up plans to privatize many of their department's state-owned enterprises by encouraging private and foreign investment and ownership.
Iraq's main trade union federation opposes privatization. Private companies, especially foreign companies, are less likely to reinvest profits in rebuilding Iraq's industries. They will undoubtedly seek to reduce costs by laying off workers and cutting wages and benefits, and may move production out of the country or try to hire replacement workers – as has already been the case with Halliburton-owned operations in Iraq's southern cities.
Privatization is especially troubling in the oil industry, widely considered the backbone of the Iraqi economy. A privatized industry would eliminate massive amounts of much-needed revenue for the Iraqi government and relocate the potential benefits to the Iraqi economy elsewhere.
Privatization would also signal to Iraqis and the world that Bush's war on Iraq was mainly aimed at creating a free-flow of Iraqi oil out of that country into the tankers and refineries of large oil companies closely affiliated with the Bush administration.
--Reach Joel Wendland at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
