A Union of Labor

Once the U.S. occupation of Iraq began over a year ago, Iraqi workers lost no time in reorganizing their country’s labor movement. Labor activity spread from Baghdad to the Kurdish north, with the center of the storm in the south, in the oil and electrical installations around Basra, and the port of Um Qasr.

Workers quickly discovered that the occupation authorities had little respect for labor rights, however. Once the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) took power in Baghdad in March of 2003, it began enforcing a 1987 law banning unions in public enterprises, where most Iraqis are employed. On top of this, CPA head Paul Bremer added Public Order #1, banning pronouncements that “incite civil disorder, rioting, or damage to property.” The phrase civil disorder can easily apply to organizing strikes, and leaders of both the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) and Iraq’s Union of the Unemployed have been detained a number of times.

Labor repression in Iraq, however, has provoked U.S. unions into speaking out against the war and occupation in a way unseen since Ronald Reagan’s wars in Central America. Bremer’s hostility towards labor made it onto the radar screen of U.S. unions last fall, when a delegation sent by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW) to make contact with the country’s reborn workers’ movement brought back accounts of the suppression of labor rights. This spring USLAW, encompassing U.S. unions and labor councils representing hundreds of thousands of members, organized a fund-raising campaign for Iraq’s new unions. This June in Geneva, Neil Bisno, secretary-treasurer of SEIU Local 1199P, delivered $5,000 checks to the IFTU and the Workers’ Councils and Unions of Iraq. 

Last January AFL-CIO president John Sweeney condemned enforcement of the 1987 law and called on the CPA “to allow Iraqi workers to associate together and participate collectively in rebuilding the economy.” The AFL-CIO and other international labor federations began working with the International Labor Organization to redraft Iraq’s labor code, which could lead to dropping the 1987 prohibition. 

Labor Opposition to the Occupation

In the meantime, however, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), with a history of cold war intelligence activity, began offering funds for U.S. government labor programs in Iraq. Some USLAW activists fear that NED involvement will endanger more progressive parts of the country’s labor law, such as guarantees of healthcare, housing, and education, as well as involve unions in administering the occupation.

This June, U.S. labor opposition to the occupation had grown so strong that two of the AFL-CIO’s largest unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) passed resolutions calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops and respect for the rights of Iraqi workers. The California Labor Federation, with one-sixth of all U.S. union members, followed suit.

As labor’s campaign to unseat Bush grows stronger, opposition to the Iraq war and support for that country’s new labor movement have become election issues for thousands of U.S. workers. 

Iraqi Labor Resurgent

Low wages have driven the upsurge in Iraqi labor activity, including three general strikes in Basra alone. Following the arrival of U.S. troops, Iraqi public sector workers began receiving emergency salaries dictated by the Coalition Provisional Authority – roughly from $60 to $120 monthly. Then the CPA’s Order #30 on Reform of Salaries and Employment Conditions of State Employees last September lowered the base to $40, and eliminated housing and food subsidies.