June 5th 2008


Naftana statement



Confrontation with the Unions will Lead the Iraqi Government Nowhere


The government of Nouri Al-Maliki is waging a campaign of repression against trade unions, professional managers and ordinary working people in vital industries and facilities aimed at imposing unpopular policies without public consultation.



The thrust of this new campaign is a series of decisions to sack thousands of port workers, to attack the trade union organisation of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions and to remove the competent technocratic management of the South Oil Company which had opposed the government's plans for long-term contracts and Production Sharing Agreements with international oil companies.





The government is attempting to enforce its decisions by unconstitutional measures, using old Saddam-era legislation banning both trade unions and strikes in the public sector, and resorting to the use of the army, paramilitary forces and allied militias to enforce these decisions.





A decision by the Council of Ministers dated 25 March 2008 mandated unspecified legal measures against any public sector worker taking strike action or participating in civil disobedience in response to a call from any political party or organisation, and the decision considered strikes a "grave matter aimed at … the disruption of public life". The Council of Ministers' decision makes it clear that it has trade unions in its sight, and it implies, contrary to the Iraqi Constitution on the basis of which the Al-Maliki government itself claims its legitimacy, that unions in the public sector are illegal organisations. This is in contrast to an earlier government position of negotiating with the Unions, including talks with the Prime Minister in May 2007.





Constructive dismissal or a death sentence?





Following the Council of Ministers' decision, another decision was taken by the Oil Minister, Hussain Al-Sharistani, to transfer eight out of the eleven union Executive Committee members (including the Chair, Deputy Chair, Secretary and Communications Secretary) of the South Oil Refining Company from the Basra area to the Al-Dora refinery in the Baghdad suburb of that name, which has endured some of the worst violence in the capital. To say the least, this is a deliberately brutal act by the soft-spoken Minister who roams the world's business conference circuits, talking up the achievements of his Ministry.





The transfer of workers under these circumstances away from their families and the protection of their communities into an area where murder gangs operate with impunity and where tens of thousands of the local population have themselves fled their own homes, is somewhere between constructive dismissal and a death sentence by possible torture or beheading.





Dr Al-Shahristani is certainly aware of the ramifications of his decision. He is also using powers of a centrally managed economy to transfer workers at will from one facility to another and one province to another, powers he would not have under the new economic system he professes to aspire to.





In 2005, Dr Al-Shahristani had held the position of Deputy Speaker of the Constituent Assembly which drew up the constitution that is supposed to guarantee trade union rights and which is supposed to have moved away from the excessive centralisation of the past. In this light, his decision smacks of extraordinary hypocrisy.





Belicose Management and Threatened Militarisation





Another step taken recently by Dr Al-Shahristani was to order the removal of the top management of the oil sector in the south, ostensibly to advisory positions in the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. This includes the South Oil Company's General Director, Jabbar Lu'aibi, a respected engineer with long experience of the company itself and who, with his staff, was credited with a major role in repeatedly rehabilitating production after destruction and looting in war time. Lu'aibi enjoys good rapport with the workers and has the respect of the local community. Despite earlier being directed by Al-Shahristani to end facilities for the Oil Workers' Union in the company, Lu'aibi had continued his co-operation and in effect ignored the Minister's directive. Clearly, this was within his prerogative within any modern managerial structure, but the Minister despite his protestations to the contrary, harks back to the Saddam era style.





While Lu'aibi's counsel should be sought in Baghdad, it is evident that the purpose of his transfer and the transfer of the heads of the South Gas Company and the Iraqi Oil Tankers Company at this time is to install a military style control over the oil industry following the widespread deployment of the military in civilian areas across Iraq's cities. The threat is real that the government may use the military and spurious legal powers to enforce its anti-union decisions and its attacks against competent and honest national technical cadre.





Dockers Attacked





Elsewhere, the government is apparently already taking drastic measures by sacking thousands of port workers three months after sending in the military to Iraq's only deep water goods port, Um Qasr, allegedly to combat militias, corruption and smuggling. The port workers have already countered the government's claims by suggesting that the government's purpose is to privatise the port, and that massive job losses are inevitable. The workers also assert that the port operation had been producing a considerable financial surplus for some years, and that this is evidence of competence and that it decries the claims of militia control.





The attack on the ports was spearheaded by Barham Salih, Deputy prime Minister and one of the main Iraqi advocates of a US invasion during 2002 and 2003. Salih was parachuted into some of the most important economic policy posts in one Iraqi government after another since 2003, without himself having had any economic expertise or training. His main attribute has been his militia background and his connections with the US Embassy, foreign consultants and multinational companies.





During the year that Salih was supposed to have spent as Minister of Planning, he rarely set foot inside the Ministry's main building. The former militia leader claims to be cleaning up a seaport right the other side of the country from his own fiefdom, while border crossings and customs dues under the control of his party remain out of bounds for public officials and outside the public national budget.





Softly, softly, Privatisation by force





Al-Shahristani also had no expertise in his area of responsibility, the oil sector. However, he at least began by taking counsel from a small group of oil professionals. The problem for Dr Al-Shahristani was that he got more than he bargained for: a torrent of studied and sound technical advice from dozens of professionals of wide experience and the highest calibre. Almost all that advice ran counter to that fed to him and his predecessors by the World Bank, the IMF, a non-technical UN team, and the private BearingPoint consultants appointed by USAID. Al-Shahristani had to choose between his job in a US-backed government and between heeding honest advice from those committed to the Iraqi oil industry. His soft public tone notwithstanding, he has apparently chosen confrontation with those who had protected Iraq's national industry from a Halliburton takeover and have kept production going under the greatest adversity.





Throughout the past years, the Unions have been constructive in their dealings with the government, demanding full and open consultation on matters of both national importance and of direct concern to their members. They have been acting responsibly and in a measured fashion, and they have engaged in open and public discourse on great national issues and have pushed the government and politicians into the unfamiliar territory of transparent politics where oil matters are concerned. At the same time, the unions, especially the IFOU have achieved a great deal for their members who produce the wealth of the nation and yet continue to live in poverty and squalor.





Unions against sectarianism





In the meantime, the whole political system under US occupation has been mired in the worst corruption almost anywhere in the world where militia and state are interwoven; police, vigilantes and criminals are frequently indistinguishable; mafia and politicians are comfortable in each other's realms; occupation and pillage don haughty ideals.





The unions represent a challenge equally to sectarian politics, lawlessness and arbitrary rule. Through the solidarity of the workforce in vital industries and facilities, the unions are protecting not only their members but also the national interest against imperial pillage by the occupation and the multinationals behind it. After all the bloodletting of the past five years, the attacks on the unions mark a return to dictatorship, but without the fig leaf of a national policy.





Rather than working with trade unions and oil sector managers to raise output while oil prices are so high, the government and Dr Al-Shahristani appear to have chosen a confrontation that will cost Iraq delays in development and lost revenue. But this is exactly what the international oil companies want as they desire to appear as the only ones with competence to manage the Iraqi oil industry. In reality, the conflict of the Iraqi people with the occupation is far from over as evident from the overwhelming national rejection of demands by the dying Bush government for a treaty that would consecrate a permanent military occupation of Iraq. For a long time to come, effective development of the Iraqi oil industry will only be possible by Iraqis and under Iraqi management, it is therefore better for the Iraqi government to choose to co-operate with the unions and the local communities than to follow the path of confrontation to nowhere.





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TAKE ACTION!

US anti-war union movement US Labor Against War have written a model letter to be sent to embassies (see below)

Please contact your union branches and local anti war groups to pass urgent motions of solidarity

Ask your local MP to raise questions in parliament over the attacks on trade unions and to challenge the well-documented British governmental support for privatization of Iraqi resources.

Picket the Iraqi Embassy, US Embassy, Downing Street, Shell and BP

Copies of emails sent to the embassy and of support motions for the union should be sent to  naftana@naftana.org

MODEL LETTER

UK Embassy

E-mail:  lonemb@iraqmofamail.net
Telephone: +44 207 602 8456
Fax: +44 207 371 1652

FAO IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO THE UK

Mr. Ambassador:

We have been informed that Iraqi Oil Minister Hussein Al-Shahirstani has
ordered the transfer of eight leaders and activists of the Iraq
Federation of Oil Unions from their long-standing assignments at the
South Oil Company in Basra to work in the Al-Dorah neighborhood of
Baghdad, known for its worsening security situation and high level of
sectarian killings. In doing so, the Minister knowingly exposes these
trade unionists to a heightened risk of injury or even death. As such,
this decision constitutes a grave violation of these workers' human
rights, as well as an assault on their labor rights and the rights of
all those workers who they represent in their capacity as IFOU leaders.

This action escalates the Iraqi government's continuing, repeated and
blatant violations of internationally recognized labor rights as
enshrined in the Conventions of the International Labour Organization of
the United Nations, including those to which Iraq is a signatory. Iraq
continues to enforce the dictatorship era labor codes that ban unions
and collective bargaining for public sector and public enterprise
employees in clear violation of ILO conventions. Iraq has failed to
adopt a basic labor law (as called for by its own Constitution) to
protect the rights of all workers to free association, to form unions of
their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their
labor, and to strike when necessary in defense of their interests.

We soundly and most strongly condemn these gross violations of labor and
human rights. No democracy can ever be established in Iraq unless and
until its workers enjoy the full range of core labor rights recognized
by the ILO. No democracy can ever be sustained in Iraq without its
workers and their unions being free of government intervention in their
internal affairs.

Iraq must completely erase all vestiges of its authoritarian and
repressive past if it is to earn the respect of the world community. We
demand that your government immediately rescind the transfer order for
these workers, cease harassing unions and union activists, and that it
recognize and respect the rights of all Iraqi workers to form unions of
their own choosing, to negotiate the terms and conditions of their
employment, and to act collectively in defense of their own interests.

We intend to monitor this situation closely to learn what actions you
have taken to remedy these gross violations of labor and human rights.

Yours truly,