Unions Around World to Protest Iran's Treatment of Bus Workers

By Nora Boustany
Wednesday, February 15, 2006; A18

(www.washingtonpost.com)

While the international community is locking horns with Iran over its plan to push ahead with uranium enrichment -- a potential first step toward making nuclear weapons -- a separate global confrontation is gathering steam over labor practices under the Iranian theocracy.

Labor unions in 18 capitals, including Washington, are taking part today in demonstrations outside Iranian embassies and interest sections to protest the coercive treatment of bus drivers in Tehran and its suburbs, who have been beaten, jailed and dismissed for attempting to negotiate better wages.

A number of international and Washington- based organizations are responding to a call by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, based inBrussels, for an international day of action on Iran. The AFL-CIO, itsSolidarity Center here and the federation's Metropolitan Washington Council have called for a demonstration at noon in front of the Iranian Interest Section at 2209 Wisconsin Ave. NW.

Abroad, protests are scheduled by transportation unions in France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Bermuda.

The catalyst for the global protests was the arrest on Dec. 22 of Mansoor Osanloo , president of the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Co., along with the members of its executive board.

Under pressure from international labor and human rights groups, the board members were released, but Osanloo remains in jail and is reportedly in poor health. On Jan. 28, the 17,000-member Syndicate called a strike to protest his detention and demand that the government recognize the rights to form a union and engage in collective bargaining -- rights protected under the conventions of the International Labor Organization.

On the eve of the strike, police raided the homes of union activists and arrested workers, in some cases with their wives and children, including a 2-year-old girl who was bruised and hurled into a patrol van, according to a report posted on the Web site of the Solidarity Center.

The next day, the government and the public transportation company dispatched security and armed forces, who used tear gas and wielded batons while threatening to shoot at rioters. Others who arrived at the picket line were rounded up at gunpoint.

Hundreds of people were arrested in their homes, said Heba F. El-Shazli , regional program director for the Middle East and North Africa at the Solidarity Center. Some prisoners have since been freed but have been denied the right to go back to work.

Hundreds remain at Tehran's Evin prison without formal charges.

It was not possible to contact the Iranian Interests Section for comment. The Tehran government has accused some labor unions of acting against national security, holding illegal gatherings and being linked to banned communist and Kurdish groups.

In a Feb 1. letter, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney wrote to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to protest the arrests. Sweeney wrote that the AFL-CIO "strongly condemns the arrest of workers exercising their legitimate, internationally recognized trade union rights and demands the immediate and unconditional release of all detained trade unionists."

According to Gholamreza Mirzaei , a spokesman for the Tehran bus workers union who was quoted on another Web site, 200 workers were freed by Feb. 7but none have been able to go back to their jobs, and hundreds stilllanguish in prisons.