The Democratic and Freedom Society of East Kurdistan (KODAR)
The labourers’ strike of the oil, gas and petrochemical arena in protest the country’s poor living conditions and miserable economy in Iran has begun as a democratic right and has been supported internally and externally. Such as “The Democratic and Freedom Society of East Kurdistan (KODAR)”, we state our support for this democratic struggle.
Before the revolution of 57 (1979), the Iranian workers, after four decades of struggle, finally achieved many of their democratic rights, but after the revolution and in the first decade after that, the divine republic squandered all those achievements. The labourers’ strikes of the oil, gas and petrochemical arena in Iran just four days after the presidential election is a sign of the deplorable economic situation of all sections of the Iranian society. This strike has voiced the necessity alarm of an uprising and popular movement.
The strikes themselves need the support of the popular movement. The circumstances of the labourers basically state the situation of the whole society. The labourers in their large campaign have protested and still continue against inequality in pay and poor living wage circumstances. From retirees to employees, they are demanding their unpaid wages through widespread strikes and the announcements of protest and demonstration statements throughout Iran. The regimes unconcerned for labourers’ rights and their cries are due to the fact that they consider strikes to be a security issue for the government and the state. The regime has turned the oil field into a sorrowful hell for the labourers’ livelihood in Iran for its own interests and huge profits.
With that addicted amount of bribery and corruption, the oil field has no livelihood and only causes to labourers’ burnout, incurable diseases, and the hardships of life. Severe illness and pre-retirement death is the deadly situation that Iranian capitalism has created for the labourers’ faction. The regime’s Ministry of Oil has stated in its enactment that it has no responsibility for the safety of the labourers. On a hand the bourse traders, the corruptions and the private sectors, and on the other hand, and contractors, have monopolised the “hidden government” relationship in the oil field. The regime turns it into the national wealth at the cost of the blood and lives of the labourers, the wealth, which has no any advantage for the labourer’s faction. The labourers’ struggle has a history as long as the life of the oil industry, which has been full of discrimination, repression and wastage of rights.
Certainly, further than the demand of the welfare of the labours, the increase of their salaries and attention to them must be radically succeeded this historical difficulty with the uprising and popular movements in Iran. The recent labourers’ strikes have received the consideration and support of the international organisations and unions. In Iran, however, resolve the crises in the labours’ lives and livelihoods depend on reforming the entire structure of the country’s system. That the authoritarians of the system do not have such a desire in their mind, so certainly a general strike can only be successful if it is raised to the level of a “popular protest movement.” Beyond the monthly salaries and benefits issues, it is an affair of living and rising for them.
Since the recent strikes have frightened the regime and should be studied as a repeat of the November 2019 uprising, the government has projected it in a completed shameless and has not taken responsibility for many crises. Sufficing the trivial increase of the monthly wages of temporary labourer’s contractors, and daily contracts, or formal contracts, would reduce a dignified life to a lesser amount than a radical uprising to a normal, dignified life.
We declare as “The Democratic and freedom society of East Kurdistan (KODAR)” while supporting the general strikes of Iranian labourers, in the present situation, there is no any existing labour, who has not been enslaved. Therefore, a democratic solution, the organised popular uprising and demanding rights is possible not only in factories, but also in the streets by constructing a popular movement.
As KODAR, we are standing for a comprehensive uprising by forming a common and united labourers’ movement under the leadership and pioneering of our self-governing people, and we call all factions and strata of society, especially employees and labourers of other fields, intellectuals and civil society, youth and women activists. This is in order to realise a radical and self-governing popular movement to support the general workers’ strikes in all areas. If the organisation of the labourers’ movement is systematised, the strikes will achieve the fundamental result radically. The great victory of the labourers by radical and self-governing struggles would turn into possible.
The Democratic and Freedom Society of East Kurdistan (KODAR)
02 July 2021
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