Iraqi Oil Workers Are Ready To Fight Privatisation

[Itsthetruth]

Iraq's other resistance
Oil workers in Basra are ready to fight privatisation

Greg Muttitt
Friday June 3, 2005
The Guardian

Faced with daily reports of car bombs and kidnappings, it's difficult to feel optimistic about Iraq. But last week in the south of the country I heard a very different story. A story of the movement that has formed to rebuild the country's economy and national pride, to create an Iraq with neither the tyranny of Saddam nor the pillage of military occupation.
Last week Basra saw its first conference on the threat of privatisation, bringing together oil workers, academics and international civil-society groups. The event debated an issue about which Iraqis are passionate: the ownership and control of Iraq's oil reserves.

The conference was organised by the General Union of Oil Employees (GUOE), which was established in June 2004 and now has 23,000 members. Focused as much on the broader Iraqi public interest as on members' concerns, its first aim was to organise workers to repair oil facilities and bring them back into production during the chaos of the early months of occupation.
This effort by the workers required both courage - often in conflict either with coalition troops or remnants of the Ba'athist regime - and considerable ingenuity, putting back together a working oil industry with minimal resources.

The occupation forces and their allies in the Iraqi government see things differently. Plans are now afoot for sweeping changes to Iraq's oil sector, to give western oil majors access to its reserves for the first time since 1972.

But they will face a challenge. While the workforce has shown itself to be quite capable of running the industry, it has been equally effective at shutting down that industry when threatened by the authorities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1498155,00.html

* Hassan Juma’a Awad Al Asade, Chief of the Executive Bureau of the GENERAL UNION OF OIL EMPLOYEES (Basra), is one of the Iraqi union leaders who will be touring the United States to speak at public meetings on what is really happening in Iraq.

For more information go to the DU post "Iraqi Union Leaders to Speak Out June 10-20 in 20 U.S. Cities"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3770853

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Privatization is another word for

democracy. Go figure.