NCRI – The clerical dictatorship in Iran fears workers’ discontent and ire to the extent that Hassan Rouhani’s Ministry of Interior has refused to approve a permit for a march on International Workers’ Day requested by the state organization “Khaneh Kargar” (Workers’ House). Instead officials have asked laborers to participate in a ceremony in an auditorium where Hassan Rouhani is to speak.
Khaneh Kargar was established in the 1980s by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and its current secretary, Alireza Mahjoub, continues to be an official within this regime involved in the oppression of workers.
Mr. Abbas Davari, the Chair of the Labor Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, congratulated Iranian workers on the occasion of the International Workers’ Day, and said that due to the anti-popular and anti-Iranian policies of the clerical regime over the past 35 years, Iranian workers and their families had become increasingly impoverished and subjected to a life of utter hardship.
For example, the Iranian regime has set the minimum wage for workers at 608,000 tomans while the officially declared poverty line is 1,800,000 tomans, and non-governmental experts put the number at 3,000,000 tomans. Thus millions of workers, even if employed, can only provide for 20% to 30% of their basic needs of their families.
The minimum rent for a residence stands at 400,000 tomans, or two thirds of the minimum wage of workers.
Meanwhile, the increase in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel in the recent days has led to a wave of price hikes in other commodities and basic services.
Further abusing the high unemployment rate, the regime’s authorities are hiring workers as “contract laborers” that are compelled to give in to tyrannical and anti-human conditions. Based on the contracts, the worker is left with no right to protest and can be fired without reason.
Dozens of protesting workers and syndicate activists have been arrested for attempting to attain the most minimal workers’ rights, and are suffering years of hardship in detention and torture in the regime’s medieval prisons. Many of them have been given long-term prison sentences.
The Labor Committee of the National Council of Resistance calls on all Iranian workers to unite and resist the clerical regime in order to achieve their rights. This just objective may only be realized by the removal of the religious dictatorship and establishment of democracy and freedom in Iran.
Labor Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 30, 2014