Iraq: No Democracy Without Strong Unions/Labour Must Act Now

Posted to the IUF website 11-Jun-2003

Share this article.



The International Federation of Workers' Educational Associations (IFWEA), at its executive meeting of May 31-June 1 in Oslo, Norway, adopted the following resolution on the need for sustained international trade union support for building a democratic labour movement in Iraq. The IUF endorses this call for action.

The new situation created in Iraq through the overthrow of the totalitarian regime of the Baath Party controlled by Saddam Hussein represents a challenge to the international democratic labour movement.

The collapse of the Baathist State structures includes the collapse of the labour organizations which they controlled. They have not so far been replaced by genuine trade unions controlled by the workers themselves. At this critical juncture, the Iraqi workers have as yet no organization through which they can defend their rights and assert their interests.

At the same time, the US/UK occupation authorities and their allies have invited transnational corporations to undertake the "reconstruction" of the Iraqi economy and infrastructures which they have destroyed. A number of these corporations are notorious for their anti-union policies and practices. Inevitably, workers in Iraq will enter into conflict with these corporations when they assert their rights.

The political forces which have emerged in Iraq before and since the collapse of the Baathist regime are, for the most part, hostile to the democratic labour movement and, indeed, to a democratic civil society. They represent nationalist, religious extremist and conservative forces with a "free market" agenda supported by the occupation authorities.

Unless Iraqi workers receive massive international support in their coming struggles, and in their efforts to re-establish organizations through which they can effectively defend themselves, they risk becoming the principal victims of the war, after having been the victims of the totalitarian regime. Workers' organizations in democratic countries wishing to support the Iraqi people have so far focused on immediate humanitarian needs. The time has now come to address basic political and social issues.

The IFWEA EC therefore:

• expresses its solidarity with the workers of Iraq and pledges its support for every effort they will undertake to build their own democratic organizations;


• declares that, in addition to enforcing the rule of law and establishing representative public authorities and institutions, the establishment of democracy in Iraq also requires the unfettered activity of independent workers' organizations controlled by the workers themselves;


• pledges its support for the establishment and development of all institutions of a democratic civil society, such as independent, democratic and secular women's organizations, human rights organizations, welfare and solidarity organizations, educational institutions and cooperatives;
  
• stresses the importance of developing democratic workers' education and pledges itself to supporting the appropriate activities and structures;
  
• demands that the governments of the United States of America and of the United Kingdom instruct their representatives in Iraq to enforce respect of basic workers' rights, in particular the right to form trade unions, to bargain collectively and to strike;
  further demands that the future government of Iraq enforce the same rights and revalidate and implement the fifty-seven ILO conventions previous governments have ratified over eighty-four years,