[Seattle-editorial] FP: Labor Rights in Iraq

[Joseph Eisenschmidt]

Approve.

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jonathan lawson
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2003 6:17 PM
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Subject: [Seattle-editorial] FP: Labor Rights in Iraq


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>

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