Iraqis protest the Oil Law

[ck4829]

Should be called "Sharing Iraqi Oil profits with foreign corporations law"

"The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions began the second day of a strike in southern Iraq to protest labor conditions, wages, and the prospect of the hydrocarbon law currently under discussion in Parliament.

On Monday, the IFOU, which represents 26,000 oil workers in the south, announced it was shutting down two 14-inch oil and gas pipelines, and threatened to begin shutting down the 48-inch pipelines as a second phase of the protest if the government refuses to meet their demands.

According to a statement of support from the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mining and General Workers Unions, the immediate the catalyst for the strike occurred when the general manger of the Oil Pipeline Company, Adel Aziz, who is based in Baghdad rather than in Basra, blocked orders of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Mailiki to release delayed benefits due workers. Moreover, Aziz reportedly withheld a Iraqi Dinar (IQD)50,000 allowance which the workers are regularly entitled to.

The striking workers are demanding that the Oil Ministry take action to force the general manager of the pipeline company to resign. Further, they ask that the company be financially and administratively independent from the Baghdad-based central ministry, and that the pipeline company be managed locally."

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/3081/Oil_Workers_Go_On_Strike_in_South

[jtrockville]

1. They're HERE: 2007 Iraq Labor Solidarity Tour

"Between June 4th and June 29th, two Iraqi labor leaders will tour the U.S. to speak to working people in this country about the situation in Iraq".... http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/article.php?list=type&type=103

[slipslidingaway]

2. K&R thanks for the update n/t

[mhatrw]

3. Related article

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_6072029?nclick_check=1

Iraqi unions fight to keep oil out of corporate hands
By David Bacon
Article Launched: 06/06/2007 01:32:14 AM PDT

The Bush administration calls the Iraq occupation an exercise in democracy building. Yet from the beginning, many of the Iraqis who want democracy most are treated as its enemies - Iraq's unions. Iraq has a long labor history. Union activists, banned and jailed under the British and its puppet monarchy, organized a labor movement that was the admiration of the Arab world when Iraq became independent after 1958. Saddam Hussein later drove its leaders underground, killing and jailing the ones he could catch.

When Saddam fell, Iraqi unionists came out of prison, up from underground and back from exile, determined to rebuild their labor movement. Miraculously, in the midst of war and bombings, they did. The oil workers union in the south is now one of the largest organizations in Iraq, with thousands of members on the rigs, pipelines and refineries. The electrical workers union is the first national labor organization headed by a woman, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein.

Together with other unions in railroads, hotels, ports, schools and factories, they've gone on strike, held elections, won wage increases, and made democracy a living reality. Yet the Bush administration, and the Baghdad government it controls, has outlawed collective bargaining, impounded union funds and turned its back (or worse) on a wave of assassinations of Iraqi union leaders.

President Bush doesn't believe what he preaches. He says he wants democracy, yet he will not accept the one political demand that unites Iraqis above all others: They want the country's oil (and its electrical power stations, ports and other key facilities) to remain in public hands. The fact that Iraqi unions are the strongest voice demanding this makes them anathema. Selling the oil off to large corporations is far more important to the Bush administration than a paper commitment to the democratic process.