Iran—statement

Received this today. I cannot verify who this group is, but felt it should be published:

Statement # 1 by Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations about Presidential Election and recent unrest

Iranian people have witnessed the presidential elections in Iran. During the debates between candidates there was never any mention of destitute conditions of the working class, non-payment of wages, temporary-work contracts, medieval sentences of floggings, killings and incarceration of workers and labor activists, suppression of May 1st events….

The reality is that these candidates themselves are collaborators in creation of such impoverished conditions facing working class and majority of the population in Iran . That is exactly why amongst hundreds of candidates only these four were hand-picked.

In the election process all resources of capitalists, familiar and unfamiliar liberals, media networks of world capitalism: BBC, VOA, was utilized to convince people of elections as an arena for change. In various styles they attempted to convince people that their votes held some power and value. After the election it became obvious that all their propaganda were naught.

Voters discovered that their votes were misused. And now they are protesting in hundreds of thousands. People should have defended their rights by a boycott of the election, but in any instance the votes tossed into ballot boxes are being utilized by the regimes officials.

People have a right to protest such mistreatments. While condemning all the attacks on protesters we remind all that such protests should not be led by likes of Mousavi, Khatami, Kahroubi, or any other executives or elements of the capitalist order. These protests shall become a part of justice seeking by workers and toiling masses against the capitalist order.

Iranian working class has been struggling for its basic rights for years and in the process has been vigorously attacked by the protectors of Capital. In the 80’s simultaneous with execution and incarceration of hundreds and thousands of activists of social movements, especially labour movement, they executed Jamal Cheragh Vaisi, the speaker for May 1st event in Sanandaj.

In the era of so called “political reforms,” labor activists in Saghez were arrested and incarcerated for participating in May 1st events, egalitarian and freethinking writers were portrayed as hired pens, and some of them were killed in a process of chain murders.

In the past few years we have also witnessed Khaton Abad workers getting riddled with bullets, Mansour Osanloo, president of the executive board of Vahed Syndicate getting his tongue cut and incarcerated, Mahmud Salehi being jailed and denied medical attention while in confinement, flogging of labor activists on charges of participating in May 1st ceremonies, and arrests and incarceration of tens of labor activists in this year’s May1st event….

Student protesters were viciously attacked and their dormitories ransacked. Women’s movement and their activists asking for their basic rights were also beastly attacked, and incarcerated. The just rights of teachers and nurses were also violated, by firing from jobs and confinement in prisons.

Now the protectors of Capital are facing a dire crisis and reproaching each other. Working class and noble liberated people of Iran should expose such demagoguery. Bourgeoisie in whichever shape from or color cannot and will not guarantee the just rights and demands of Iranian workers and toilers.

At best the desperate attempts of capitalist class and their representatives are to turn workers into a reserve force that could be used to maintain their dominance. Working class and liberated people of Iran shall not trust them.

Workers, liberated and noble people of Iran!

Major tribulations for workers and all exploited masses are: exploitation, extensive unemployment and lack of any rights, inflation and unbearable high costs of living, lack of basics rights to from workers organizations, the right to strike, freedom of expression, and other civil liberties. Such obstacles could be overcome only by relying on the power of the working class as the main and most powerful societal force.

Workers and brave, justice seeking people of Iran and throughout the world, in their extensive, and freedom seeking protests could and should demand: the identification, arrest and prosecution of all those who ordered and implemented the recent suppressions and killings of people, and demand freedom of all those imprisoned during the recent workers’ and people’s protests.

We also demand the annulment of all sentences against workers and labour activists as well as activists of women’s movement and students’ movement.

Capitalist order is an order of barbarism, suppression and exploitation, an order of corruption, poverty, prostitution, and deprivation. Let’s unite and call for the eradication of the capitalist system.

Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers' Organizations

June 18, 2009

www.komitteyehamahangi.com

www.komitteyehamahangi.blogfa.com

komite.hamahangi@gmail.com

Iran—bus drivers

Statement from Tehran bus drivers:

In recent days we have witnessed the passionate presence of millions of women and men, the old and the young, and ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, people who want their government to recognize their most basic right, the right to freely, independently, and transparently elect, a right that in most societies around the world is not only recognized officially but for whose protection no effort is neglected.

In the current situation, we witness threats, arrests, killings, and naked persecution, which threaten to grow in dimension and lead to the shedding of innocent people's blood thus bringing a rise in popular protests and not in their decline.


Iranian society is facing a deep political and economic crisis. Million-strong protests, which have manifested themselves with a silence that is replete with meaning, have become a pattern that is growing in area and dimension, a growth that demands a response from any responsible person and organization.


The Autobus Workers Union in an announcement issued before the elections declared, "in the absence of the freedom for political parties, our organization is naturally deprived of a social institution that can protect it."

"Workers of the Autobus Workers Union consider their social involvement and political activity to be the certain right of each member of society and furthermore believe that workers across Iran as long as they submit the platforms of presidential candidates and a practical guarantee about campaign slogans can choose to participate or not participate in elections."

The fact that the demands of the vast majority of Iranian society go far beyond those of unions is obvious to all, and in the previous years we have emphasized that until the principle of the freedom to organize and to elect is not materialized, any talk of social freedom and labor union rights will be a farce.

Given these facts, the Autobus Workers Union places itself alongside all those who are offering themselves in the struggle to build a free and independent civic society. The union condemns any kind of suppression and threats.

To recognize labor-union and social rights in Iran, the international labor organizations have declared the Fifth of Tir (June 26) the international day of support for imprisoned Iranian workers as well as for the institution of unions in Iran.

We want that this day be viewed as more than a day for the demands of labor unions to make it a day for human rights in Iran and to ask all our fellow workers to struggle for the trampled rights of the majority of the people of Iran.

With hope for the spread of justice and freedom,
Autobus Workers Union

....

I will publish the story of the bus drivers attempt to form an independent union on Tuesday. And will try and confirm (double source) these stories.

Iran Khodro—strike declaration

Protest strike declared in IranKhodro, the biggest car plant in Iran:

We declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.

Autoworker, Fellow Laborers (Laborer Friends): What we witness today, is an insult to the intelligence of the people, and disregard for their votes, the trampling of the principles of the Constitution by the government. It is our duty to join this people's movement.

We the workers of Iran Khodro, Thursday 28/3/88 [Iranian calendar] in each working shift will stop working for half an hour to protest the suppression of students, workers, women, and the Constitution and declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.

The morning and afternoon shifts from 10 to 10:30. The night shift from 3 to 3:30.

Labourers of IranKhodro