Expel the Islamic Regime from the ILOBy Asqar Karimi
To the International Labour Organisation:
The Islamic Republic of Iran and its Labour House (the Co-ordination Centre for Islamic Councils of Labour) are members of the ILO. The Labour House is recognised by the ILO as the representative of workers in Iran.
With this letter, I would like to reiterate my protest against the presence of the Islamic Republic and its Labour House in the ILO. The Labour House is not the representative of workers in Iran. It is a state organisation, with deeply reactionary and anti-labour views. This organisation must be expelled from the ILO along with the Islamic Republic. The Islamic regime is well known, but let me, by way of mentioning a number of examples from the latest acts of the Labour House, introduce them to you and to the labour organisations who are members of the ILO:
* On April 18, 2001, the Labour House called a demonstration in front of Tehran city council to protest against the employment of Afghan immigrant workers. The policy of expelling immigrant workers has been on the agenda of the Islamic regime for some time now. This action by the Labour House is part of the government's project to harass Afghan workers. In hardly any other part of the world do fascists dare so openly and shamelessly to call for protest actions against the employment of immigrant workers.
* On May 1, 2000, slogans against Afghan workers and immigrants were part of the official slogans of their meetings, for instance in the Labour House meeting in Baharestan Square in Tehran, which incidentally, were rejected by a considerable section of the participants. In May Day events announced by the Labour House for May Day 2001, protests against the employment of foreign workers figured prominently. Two million Afghan workers have been working - or more precisely labouring and suffering - in Iran, some for over thirty years now. They are exploited and humiliated even more harshly than Iranian workers, deprived of all employment protections. Nevertheless, because of Taliban's rule and war conditions in Afghanistan, they have been forced to stay and put up with this appalling and disgraceful situation, rather than remain in the hell in Afghanistan. The state media in Iran carries on its smear campaign against Afghan workers, while the regime's Labour House utters fascistic slogans against them on May Day and incites other workers against them.
* The head of the Labour House, Ali Reza Mahjoub, on announcing "Labour Week 2001" for May Day said the programme for the first day consisted of the renewal of a pledge to the Velayat-e-Faghih [the supreme power of the chief ayatollah] and paying homage to Khomeini's tomb.
* In the last Annual General Meeting of the Labour House, Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the most criminal officials of the Islamic regime, had been invited to speak to the workers, to advise them and tell them that the "Leader" Khamenei was thinking of them. In last week's Congress, Rafsanjani and Khatami paid tribute to the efforts of the Labour House.
These examples are enough to show the deeply state-made, anti-labour and fascistic nature of this organisation. They reveal the open collaboration of the Labour House with the Islamic regime and its worst gangs and its hostility to the interests of workers and people as a whole. The Labour House and Islamic Councils cannot be called 'sell-out' organisations; they are fascists and official collaborators of the murderous Islamic Republic. It is unlikely that you as Director General of the ILO are unaware of the nature of the Labour House, of the two decades of its hostility to workers, its role as spy and informant on labour activists and militant workers, its collaboration with the Islamic regime's intelligence and repressive organs to track down and arrest Socialist and Communist workers and to sabotage labour strikes and protest actions.
Ali Reza Mahjoub was one of the club-wielders a number of years ago that used to go around attacking workers' gatherings. They used brute force to wrest the Labour House out of the hands of workers, turning it into the 'Co-ordination Centre for Islamic Councils of Labour.' These grim records will not easily be wiped off the memory of workers in Iran and society. The Islamic Councils of Labour are the only permitted nation-wide organisations in workplaces, formed following the mass arrest of labour activists from 1981 onwards, the torture and executions, sacking of labour activists and the terrorisation and spreading of fear in the workplaces and society as a whole. They were formed to take up the role of continuing the suppression of labour protests in the name of workers - as part of the regime's organs of repression and with the help of security forces. The security and ideological screening interviews that have to be passed in order to become a member in Islamic Councils reveal the true nature and function of these organisations. The word 'Islamic' in the name of this organisation alone reveals its reactionary, anti-labour and divisive nature.
The ILO's acceptance of the Labour House (Co-ordination Centre for Islamic Councils) as the representative of workers in Iran is a big insult to workers in Iran. Moreover, it is a clear animosity towards workers in Iran. The ILO's legitimisation of the Labour House raises yet another obstacle in the workers' struggle for organisation. The Islamic Councils and the Labour House are deeply hated by large sections of workers in Iran; and the struggle against them and for their abolishment, efforts for organisations that are independent from the state, have been part and parcel of workers' struggles in the past two decades in Iran. Workers' representatives are people like Mahmood Salehi. In the last year alone, according to the regime's own official statistics, thousands have been persecuted for their efforts to organise workers. Recognition of the Labour House delegation as the representatives of workers' in Iran is only considered as an opposition to these struggles.
Let me to add this point as well, that as far as we know, and this is what we have witnessed in wide scale contacts with workers and labour organisations in various countries, many of the existing ILO labour organisation members are not happy about the presence of the Labour House delegates nor of the delegates from the apartheid Islamic Republic regime.
Unfortunately, your policy has been one of clear appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our demand, the justified demand of workers and people of Iran, is the expulsion of the Islamic Republic and its Labour House from the ILO. We will consistently pursue this objective, expose them anywhere for all the public and workers' organisations to see, and remind everyone of the need for their expulsion from the ILO. We will hold protests in front of the offices of ILO in different countries and inform public opinion in Iran and the world against the ILO's appeasement of the Islamic Republic and its Labour House.
The above letter was written to the International Labour Organisation's Director General Juan Somaviya by Asqar Karimi on 28 April 2001. Asqar Karimi is a member of WPI's Political Bureau and Executive Committee.
