One of the things that was most noteworthy—and frequentloy critciized—about the 2009 post-election protests was the absnece of labor in the demonstrations. The protests were almost entirely middle class with the working class ignored, if not actiually shunned.
But workers have been protesting in front of th Majlis ever more frequently this past year. They complain most often about employers failing to pay them, with months of back pay owed just stacking up. And they complain about the government selling state-owmned factories to businessmen who fire them, close the factory and thn use the land for ore profitable housing sites.
Now, a petition complaining about Iran’s stumbling economy is circulating around factories and workshops. Organizers have asked for signatures and the pages have begun to fill up, The Associated Press reported this week.
Some 10,000 names have been attached to the petition addressed to the labor minister in one of the most wide-reaching public outcries over the state of the country’s economy.
A list of 10,000 signatures is not much in the United States, where the little-known Virgil Goode just submitted 20,000 signatures to get on the ballot in Virginia as the Constitution party candidate fro president. But Iran does not have the organized groupings of civil socoiety so cpommon in the United States that can gather signatures on petitioons. It doesn’t have free labor unions. And it does have a government that frowns on such things as petitions.
So 10,000 signatures on a list of complaints against the government amounts to something in the Islamic Republic.
The protest document — described to The Associated Press this week by labor activists and others — suggests growing anxiety among Iran’s working class. It also appears to reinforce the US and European assertions that the economic squeeze is bringing increasing pressures on Iranian authorities.
Jafar Azimzadeh, a labor rights activist and gas-pipe fitter, warned of stronger fallout if the government does not find ways to prop up salaries and rein in prices. “Workers would not stay at the level of writing petitions,” he said. “They would go toward street gatherings and other actions.”
In May, President Ahmadi-nejad was cheered in the northeastern city of Mashhad as he promised to create 2.5 million new jobs and boost worker benefits. It was a welcome reception after facing mounting criticism for policies that include scattershot privatizations and allowing inflation to surge.
But the petition sent to Labor Minister Abdol-Reza Shaikholeslami offered a far more bleak assessment of a country burdened by rising prices and increasing economic isolation.
“A staggering increase in prices has been biting over the past year as wages of workers have only increased 13 percent this year,” said the petition, whose full text was not made available to the AP, although selected parts were provided. It added: “Millions of workers cannot afford their monthly housing costs.”
Unskilled factory workers in Iran make an average monthly wage of 3 million to 7 million rials, or about $95 to $220 at Monday’s exchange rate. The official poverty line is about 10 million rials, or around $315, a month.
Meanwhile, prices keep rising and the rial keeps falling. A 1.5-kilogram (52-ounce) container of yoghurt has doubled to about 24,000 rials (75 cents) since early September. Various meats and rice, both staples of Iranian kitchens, have risen 48 percent and 34 percent, respectively, since last year.
Official reports put Iran’s inflation rate at 23 percent, but Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani last week said it was 29 percent. The unemployment rate is officially 12 percent, but some economists place it nearly three times higher.
“It’s not ideology that is the weakest link for Iran’s ruling system,” said Sami al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. “It’s the economy. This, of course, was an important element of the Arab Spring, and that fact is definitely not lost on Iran.”
Iran’s factory workers and laborers have provided the tipping points at pivotal moments of history. They backed the 1979 revolution and generally sided with the ruling clerics when they were under threat by riots after Ahmadi-nejad’s disputed re-election in 2009.
The petition contains no warnings or ultimatums against the Islamic system, activists say. But the scope of the signatures — representing several Iranian cities — is an unusual show of grassroots unity without umbrella organizations such as unions.
“When we do not have rights for major protest rallies and strikes, petitions are the only way,” said Parvin Mohammadi, a retired metal industry worker and one of the organizers. She said the workers wrote a protest petition about the irregular pay of their wages earlier in June.
Another labor activist said signatures were gathered clandestinely at factories and work sites. “Sometime we collected signatures through the mail,” he said.
The signatures included mine workers in the mineral-rich center and west, food and textile producers in Tehran and central Iran, and bus drivers in Tabriz. Conspicuously absent, the activist said, were workers in the oil industry, which provides up to 80 percent of Iran’s foreign currency earnings. Iranian oil workers usually receive better wages than others.
Labor groups also object to proposed changes in Iran’s labor law, which would give employers a free hand to fire workers and would cut annual leave to 20 days from 30 days. Ali-Reza Mahjub, a representative of workers in the Majlis, said he would lead fights against the changes with possibly more street protests.
“This is an exercise for unity of workers,” said Hamid-Reza Shokuhi, editor of independent Mardom Salari daily. He said the petition demands are not directly political but carry a whiff of dissent since “activities of workers were blocked because they were interpreted in the past as opposition to the ruling establishment.”
Iranian officials have made no comment on the petition, which was only reported by the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) and the reformist Sharq daily. But some lawmakers have given the petition their support. Deputy Abbas-Ali Mansouri said higher wages are needed “while workers are falling under the poverty line.”
At a square in downtown Tehran, laborers gather to be picked for day jobs at construction sites, making about 300,000 rials ($9.50) a day.
“I wish I was among signatories. I was not aware of it prior to reports,” said Abbas Hodavand, an unemployed construction worker. “Every day, in heat and cold, we wait to be picked up by a possible employer. This is not a life.”