[Seattle-editorial] FP: Labor Rights in Iraq

[jonathan lawson]

subtitle: UNCLE SAM'S UNIONBUSTING WORLDWIDE
title: In Iraq, Labor Protest Remains Illegal

Despite promises of democratization, US occupation policies in Iraq have 
turned a deaf ear to the needs of Iraqi workers, who suffer the same 
restrictions on organizing and workplace democracy as under the Saddam 
Hussein regime, under worsened economic conditions. As under the previous 
regime, the US-led Coalition Provision Authority has banned labor unions 
and organized protests, two rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration 
of Human Rights.

<p>Approximately seventy percent of the Iraqi workforce is unemployed. Most 
who have found jobs working on reconstruction projects are being paid an 
"emergency" wage, dictated by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, 
of $60 a month.  None of the $87 billion recently appropriated by Congress 
for Iraqi "reconstruction" is destined to help impoverished Iraqi workers 
or the unemployed. Instead, the money will prepare the way for the 
transformation of the Iraqi economy, and the privatization of the state 
enterprises at its heart. The beneficiaries are US conglomerates and 
contractors such as the notoriously anti-union, Seattle-based firm <a 
href="http://www.workersdemocracy.org/SSA.html">Stevedoring Services of 
America</a>.

<p><b><a 
href="http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=4568">Read 
the full story here.</b></a>

<p><a href="http://www.owcinfo.org/campaign/Iraq/Index.html">Campaign for 
Labor Rights in Iraq</a> | <a href="http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org">US 
Labor Against War</a>