War threats and Iran's impoverished workers

The imposition of Sanctions against Iran is War by other means. Majid Tamjidi writes on how the sanctions hit ordinary people and tghe nature of the Iranian Government. Full text at link

Over the last few years western governments have created an atmosphere of war against Iran and in the last few months severe sanctions have come into effect. In addition we face the threat of military attacks by Israel against Iran’s strategic centres, including nuclear facilities.

It is not difficult to rebuff western excuses for creating this atmosphere of war and sanctions. The west is Israel’s main ally in the region and that country is a nuclear power. The US and its allies have never questioned Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, nor have they threatened it militarily. The imperialist powers’ main interactions in the region are with Saudi Arabia, which must hold the gold medal (or at least silver) for human rights abuses.

The western media do not pay attention to the real victims of human rights abuses in Iran, such as Mahmoud Salehi, the labour activist who has spent the last few years in and out of Iranian jails for organising a May Day gathering. The soft war against Iran conducted by media like the BBC Persian service and Voice of America has not mentioned Salehi’s recent trip to France as a representative of the Iranian labour movement, while people like former Islamic guard Mohsen Sazegara and other ‘democracy campaigners’ are getting wall to wall coverage to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish them from these stations’ presenters.

The western media present the Islamic regime as a bunch of ignorant fundamentalist mullahs who know nothing about management and governance. Of course, it is true that the Islamic regime is a reactionary force relying on religious laws. However, this is not the total truth. As far as industry and production are concerned, the Iranian government has, especially over the last 20 years, adopted exactly the type of policies adhered to in the west. It has followed the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It has abolished subsidies and introduced ‘rationalisation’ and intensification of labour productivity in order to get rid of workers. It has ended all collective negotiations and imposed contracts enforcing post-Fordist labour policies and Toyota-ist management techniques in major industries, especially its car manufacturing plants, Iran Khodro and Saipa.

These policies have led to a situation where, out of 12 million employed workers, 80% (10 million) work under temporary contracts and managers have the right to sack these workers when it suits them. These employment contracts are known as ‘white contracts’ - the employee signs an empty page and management adds the text as and when it chooses.