Posted on 09/24/2006 6:32:29 PM PDT by freedom44
Just two weeks after the workers staged protests at the DieselOil automobile manufacturing plant that included workers going on hunger strikes, tens of thousands of workers at the Alborz carpet workshops in the northern town of Babolsar held a demonstration which led to clashes with law enforcement personnel. These workers have not been paid their monthly wages for some nine months.
According to ILNA labor news agency, 300 workers from the textile plant had decided to hold a demonstration in front of their plant to demonstrate their protest against the non-payment of their wages with their families and march on to Babolsar Governor’s headquarters. They were stopped by the law enforcement forces and the incident led to clashes and arrest of some of the participants.
According to ILNA, last winter there were reports about the closure of this large textile plant. Since then, the employment status of some 300 workers from the plant remains unclear, and despite repeated promises by officials, nothing effective has been done to resolve the problems of the workers and the plant.
At the same time, in protest to current labor laws and the conditions of workers, Islamic Workers Associations of industrial plants in the town of Saveh have sent a letter to President Ahmadinejad complaining about the performance of the current Minister of Labor stressing that the policies of minister Jahromi have jeopardized workers jobs and weakened labor organizations raising the possibility of their complete elimination.
According to the letter, which has been published by ILNA, workers plead with the President in an attempt to convince him that workers conditions, injustice and cruelty have severely hurt workers. “Do not allow workers to feel ashamed in front of their spouses and children”, the letter reads. “Is this not an Islamic government, one belonging to the deprived and oppressed? Has Minister Jahromi been appointed and confirmed by the Majlis (Iran's Parliament) to destroy workers or to provide his services to them and bring about justice, equality and job security?, the letter continues.
Since President Ahmadinejad’s government took over the executive branch of government last year, it has engaged in violent and brutal suppression of workers sit-ins and protests. Last years demonstrations by the Tehran bus company is an example where the protestors were met with brutal police attacks, leading to arrests of the activists.
How do you live when you havent been paid for 9 months.
And all this time Almondjoy is using the money to build nukes.
I also wonder how these people buy food and pay to keep their homes with no income.
Sometimes it forces the wives and children to make money any way they can.
How many people abroad do you think risk sending money to Iran?
More often the husband tries to find a second job, the children work and the wife, if unable to find a job, prostitutes herself.
Terrible. So these people are essentially slaves.
"So these people are essentially slaves."
Yes. If they can't find any other work, they feel they have to keep working at the one job they have, in the hope that one day they'll be paid.
A: Don't pay those folks at the DieselOil auto plant for 9 months. And, of course, blame George Bush.
The exile community represents half of the upper class of pre revolution Iran. A third of all doctors and half of all professors left the country in just the first few years. Iranian Americans have a higher average income than Americans as a whole, by a factor of about 1.5, and total investments held by the exile community in the west, US and Europe, including owned businesses and professional properietorships etc, run about $300 billion.
The largest community is in the US, specifically in Los Angeles. There are also moderate colonies in Washington DC (lobbying for a change in the government at home, a court around the descendents of the Shah and the old diplomatic service, etc) and in New York. Canada also has a significant Iranian exile community, then come Germany, Sweden, Austria and the Netherlands, more recently also the UK, and also Turkey for a poorer class of migrants including many Iranian Kurds.
These people would happily run Iran peacefully in an entirely pro western and pro US manner if they could get rid of the present dictatorship. In the meantime, the government spends it oil revenues on its huge paramilitaries and on imports of weaponry and technology, while this exile community sends several billion a year for subsistence to the balance of their extended families still in Iran.
Yes, I know that many Iranians have left. And some no longer have family in Iran. And many who have been gone for decades only have distant relatives there. I also know it's illegal for Iranians to receive US currency and that the mail is monitored and searched. And thousands in Europe are living in impoverished conditions.
I seriously doubt that the majority of these factory workers are being subsidised by family abroad.
You're right. Exiled Iranians here are generally well educated and successful.
Here's a comparison of what has happened to the value of Iranian money before the Shah left and now....
In 1978, 1 U.S. dollar = 7 Toman
Now, 1 USD = 920 Toman
In 1978, the highest valued bill denomination (banknote) in Iran was worth 143 USD.
Now, the highest-valued banknote is worth slightly over $2.
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