The World Trade Union Confederation is attending the International Labor Organization’s annual seminar, which this year marks the 40th anniversary of its support for the Iranian labor movement, registered in 1983 under the no. 1187. The report of workers’ strikes and repression, imprisonment and widespread executions of that bloody decade, compared to 2023, will see that every year the number of protests is higher and the situation of Iranian workers has fallen to a lower level economically and socially.

Along with repression, the absence of the right to organize and strike, imprisonment and execution, we see more than four million child laborers, several million retirees living below the poverty line, sex-ethnic discrimination is widespread, workers in many sectors of the economy are working with the lowest safety mechanisms, the minimum wage means hunger and absolute poverty, due to the lack of economic policy, many economic institutions are bankrupt and widespread unemployment plagues Iranian workers. the ” 96% of workers working under temporary contracts work in non-native sectors and workers in free trade and energy zones live as slaves.

On October 8 last year, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Advisory Committee of the Trade Union, and the World Trade Union Federations said in a statement: “The entire international trade union movement pays tribute to the incredibly courageous people who stand up to the brutal repression perpetrated by the leaders of the Iranian government. Resistance is led by women and girls who, despite being at great risk, want to end misogyny and the government’s subjugation of basic rights of dignity.

On November 21 last year, the Congress of Workers’ Confederations strongly condemned the systematic violation of the fundamental rights of the Iranian people, including the right to association, and the congress called for the release of imprisoned trade and labor activists, an end to violence against women and girls in Iran, and the ratification and implementation of the ILO treaties by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the international organizations were called upon to call on trade unions and other organizations in Iran.

On 26 May this year, the Congress of the Confederation of European Trade Unions issued a resolution entitled “Women, Life, Freedom” Movement, in which the regime’s tactics in ruthlessly cracking down on the workers’ movement, suppression of media outlets, strikes and protests arrest, torture, rape and executions, the uplifting and continuation of revolutionary conditions of the past few months

Many labor and social organizations around the world issued similar statements in support of wage earners and social forces.

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But unfortunately, some international institutions, such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, have actually faced the Iranian people by choosing the representative of Iran as the head of the Assembly of this Council, and this has increased the Iranian people’s distrust in these global institutions

In these circumstances, the Iranian wage society calls on independent international labor organizations to continue their broad and powerful international support for workers’ struggles in Iran and to provide a roadmap for the advancement of the struggles.  Today, there is a need for a united campaign to advance economic and political struggles in Iran . In order to achieve the lost rights of workers and toilers of Iran to a certain extent through the participation of social workers. This roadmap has been published in the charter statement of minimum demands of labor organizations in February last year and emphasized on its implementation and we want to support and advance that charter of minimum demands on your part.

Our demands are:

1. Similar to complaint No. 2807 (2010) regarding the presence of “Iranian Labour Representatives” in the International Labour Organization, demand the cancellation of the credentials of the so-called Iranian Labour Representative Board for participation in the International Labour Organization Summit. We should not let the real voice of the independent Iranian workers’ movement at this meeting. Because how can Seyed Mohammad Yarahmadian “Representative and Supervisor of the Workers’ Delegation of the Regime in the International Labor Organization” be the hand-made institution of the Supreme Assembly of Workers’ Deputies representing the armed forces?
2. As in the past, announce the names of global economic institutions that cooperate economically with the Iranian government in violation of the rights of Iranian workers. Many Western economic institutions have investments in Iran. We call on the independent global workers’ organizations to identify and declare the institutions and individuals that have contributed to the misery of Iran’s economy or in the suppression of people (such as military institutions) and who have invested in other countries today. Respond to the institutions involved in the suppression of communications technology, and it is the right of the wage earners to have the possibility of independent communication.
3. Support prisoners in prisons and medieval dungeons, who have protested for their natural and basic rights, and demand the unconditional and immediate release of workers, teachers, students, journalists, etc.

The Iranian government must not be allowed to evade accountability for the conventions it has signed at the International Labor Organization.  Today, the International Committee of Inquiry into the situation of prisons is urgent, the deplorable conditions in prisons, mass arrests, the increase in unsupported sentences, and the widespread executions are increasing every day.

We are confident that the day will come when wage earners will gain the right to organize and fundamental freedoms.

June 2023

Center for Defenders of Workers’ Rights