Strikes and protests are banned, yet each year thousands of strikes and worker protests take place?

 

Did you know that the protests by workers are so widespread that the Islamic regime has started staging public manoeuvres aimed at suppressing worker protests?

 

Did you know that forming independent workers’ organisations is prohibited in Iran, yet the workers have formed several independent workers’ organisations?

 

Did you know that the workers and retired employees in Iran use the social media on a vast scale like a de facto organisation? Did you know that they take to the streets and protest against the embezzlement by state officials and billionaire ayatollahs and the intervention of the regime in Syria, Palestine and elsewhere?

 

Did you know that workers’ organisations issue statements not only in defence of immediate workers’ demands, but also in support of gender equality, children’s rights, freedom of expression, release of political prisoners, the abolition of the death penalty, and other demands of the people, acting as a voice for the demands of the entire society?

 

Did you know that the minimum wage that the state annually sets in Iran is one fourth of the poverty line? Did you know that many public and private firms do not even pay this measly wage for months and so workers have to continuously protest and take strike action to get their wages paid?

 

Did you know that the regime in Iran arrests and even flogs protesting workers whenever it can? Did you know that last year the workers of Aghdareh gold mine were sentenced to flogging, and had the sentence carried out, for protesting against layoffs? Did you know that following a vehement public outcry against this barbarism, even state officials and members of the Islamic assembly were forced to denounce it?

 

Did you know that jailed workers’ leaders, despite the appalling conditions of the prisons, turn the jails into a front of their struggle by repeatedly issuing political statements, condemning the regime for its crimes against the people and calling on people to protest?

 

Did you know that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recognises this regime? Did you know that the ILO has behaved so despite numerous protests by independent workers’ organisations and worker activists in Iran and their demand for expelling the Islamic regime and its collaborator organs from the ILO?

 

The Iranian society is on the threshold of a deep and all-encompassing transformation. All the laws and rules of the Islamic regime have been battered and are being challenged by the people daily. The workers and the people in Iran are determined to get rid of the Islamic regime of capitalists, and it is to be hoped that in the not too distant future we may be witness to a free, secular, modern, prosperous and humane Iran.

 

Support the struggle of the workers and people in Iran in every possible way!

 

Long Live May Day, the international workers’ day!

 

Worker-communist Party of Iran

April 24, 2018