Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 22, 2005
Iraqi duo says unions needed in their homeland
By Jim McKay,
In the midst of daily car bombings, power outages, food shortages and rising prices, Falah Alwan is pressing for a union movement in Iraq that he hopes will help improve living and working conditions made worse by the military conflict.
But the fight is uphill, the president of the Federation of Workers Councils & Unions in Iraq said yesterday, moments before he addressed an audience at the United Steelworkers headquarters, Downtown.
"It is not only uphill, it is slippery. There is no rock to hold," Alwan said, his words translated into English by Amjad Al Jawhary, who represents both the federation and the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq in North America.
"It has been two years of this occupation, and we have been promised a lot of democracy, and we have been promised a lot of freedom, a lot of prosperity," Jawhary said. "However, we have seen everything but democracy, but freedom, but prosperity."
The pair called for an end to the U.S. and British occupation of Iraq and for the right to form and join unions that are democratic, free of government control and free of religious, political and other discrimination. "We can take care of ourselves," Jawhary, an Iraqi exile who currently lives in Canada, said in arguing for the end of the current military occupation. "We don't need a baby sitter."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05173/526162.stmFalah Alwan, president of the Federation of Workers Councils & Unions in Iraq, (far left) Amjad Al Jawhary, (middle), of the Union of Unemployed Iraqis, take part in a press conference at the United Steelworkers of America building with USWA attorney Dan Kovalik. The two Iraqis said foreign troops should withdraw from Iraq.