Iran: Massive Privatization and New Draconian Labor Laws
Why this mass rush to privitization?
Angryarabnews (Unstable Lebanese-American Professor at USC) recently reported that Iran plans to sell 118 of its state-owned oil companies. He did not provide any link to this statement.
Amir Taheri has a piece in Arab news that takes an in depth look at the real motivation behind the IR's new push to dissolve all the hard-won and hard-fought rights for workers. The new "Islamic Labor Laws", abolishes the legal minimum wage in favor of rates fixed through agreement by employers and employees. It also allows for the generalization of verbal employment contracts, gives employers the right to hire and fire as they please, and makes legal holidays, sick leave, and pension schemes conditional to agreements on a case-by-case basis, according to Taheri.
Why is Ahmadinejad so determined to impose these hyper-capitalist and Draconian laws? Part of the answer may lie in the massive privatization scheme that Ahmadinejad is expected to unveil this year. Here is the article in full:
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to confront Iran’s increasingly restive labor movement. The showdown, begun last year, could reach a peak next week with government plans to crush International Labor Day demonstrations on May 1 by illegal trade unions.
The Islamic republic has always associated May 1 with leftist ideologies and has tried to promote an alternative “Islamic Labor Day” on May 2.
This year, however, a number of illegal trade unions have announced they would hold May 1 demonstrations in Tehran and 20 provincial capitals. The newly created Workers’ Organizations and Activists Coordination Council (WOACC), a grouping of over 80 illegal trade unions claiming a total membership of over a million in 22 cities, is leading the move.
The WOACC emerged in the wake of strikes by Tehran transport workers that brought the capital to a standstill last year. The authorities succeeded to end the strike with a mixture of mass arrests and wage concessions. However, the example set in Tehran spread to other cities and industries.
The rising labor movement started with local grievances linked to wages and working conditions. In the past few months, however, it has developed a broader consciousness by highlighting issues that concern most workers.
One issue that has brought the hitherto scattered illegal unions together is their opposition to President Ahmadinejad’s proposed new Islamic Labor Code. The text proposed by Ahmadinejad cancels virtually all the rights that working people have won throughout the world over centuries of social struggle and political reform. It abolishes the legal minimum wage in favor of rates fixed through agreement by employers and employees.
It also allows for the generalization of verbal employment contracts, gives employers the right to hire and fire as they please, and makes legal holidays, sick leave, and pension schemes conditional to agreements on a case-by-case basis.
At the same time, it imposes a ban on independent trade unions. Instead, it proposes the creation of Islamic Guidance Councils to promote “Islamic values and sensibilities” among workers.
In a detailed critique of the proposed text, the WOACC shows that the new code violates the Islamic republic’s constitution, Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and accords Iran has signed with the ILO over decades.
“The proposed text is a charter for slavery disguised as an Islamic code,” a WOACC spokesman in Tehran said over the telephone last week.
That view is shared by some members of the Islamic Consultative Majlis who criticize Ahmadinejad for refusing to submit his text to normal parliamentary procedures. Instead, the Ministry of Labor is trying to railroad the draft law through a Majlis committee controlled by pro-Ahmadinejad parliamentarians.
Ahmadinejad’s confrontational style in dealing with the labor movement has also been criticized by some top mullahs within the regime.
Ayatollah Mahmoud Shahroudi, the Islamic chief justice, has warned that the government’s repressive approach could destabilize the regime. Former President Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a mullah-cum-businessman who heads the powerful Expediency Council, has called for “sensitivity” in dealing with what may be the most serious challenge the regime has faced in years.
Why is Ahmadinejad so determined to defy a grass-root workers’ movement by imposing an unpopular law? Part of the answer may lie in the massive privatization scheme that Ahmadinejad is expected to unveil this year.
According to government sources, 44 state-owned conglomerates will be put on sale at a total price of $18 billion. These businesses employ an estimated 3.5 million people across the country. A majority of likely buyers will be mullahs and their associates, operating through supposedly religious and charitable foundations, along with officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Although potential gold mines, most of the businesses concerned have been losing money for years, because of inefficient management and corruption. They also suffer from the fact that they have had to employ far too many people, often because of nepotism and favor distribution by powerful figures of the regime.
Under the existing Labor Code, it would be difficult for the new owners to downsize the labor force or close loss-making units. The new Labor Code would give future owners carte blanche to reorganize the businesses. According to unofficial estimates, a million people could lose their jobs under privatization.
“Ahmadinejad is laying the banquet table for a big feast of plunder,” says the WOACC spokesman.
The situation is further complicated by UN-imposed sanctions that are starting to bite. Dozens of small businesses have already closed down or reduced their activities for want of credit facilities, imported parts and raw material, and fears of being shut out of foreign markets. The thousands of workers who have lost their jobs as a result plan to be in the vanguard of the May 1 demonstrations.
If this was any other entity other than the IR, some of this move toward privatization would have been beneficial to the overall health of the country's economy. However, we know that the Islamic Republic could care less about the common good for the Iranians. I'm very suspicious of this whole thing...and call me paranoid or conspiratorial, but I think there are other reasons behind this move. The mullahs are willing to risk their very own existence but why?
Iranian Plateau is baffled too by the unprecedented and alarming rate of suppression by the IRI in a span of few days:
I am wondering why IR is doing all it can to further suffocate the people?More to the point, why are they doing it almost simultaneously to different groups and via different avenues to all aspects of the society? As I've already mentioned, a couple of days ago, Ahmadinejad is a die-hard supporter of Khomeini and his doctrine and is reverting to early revolution day practices, but it seems a bit odd that all this suppression is happening in a space of a few days or at least is being reported more by MSM. I mean 150,000 women alone to be arrested in a couple of days is a lot and takes a lot of effort to do so.Does anyone see an emerging pattern toward something?
Censorship & filtering are nothing new, but now there is this piece of news:TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's Telecommunications Ministry will start filtering "immoral" video and audio messages sent via mobile phones, state television reported on Saturday.The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a body set up after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, has instructed the ministry to buy the equipment needed to prevent any misuse of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), it said. MMS allows users to send multimedia messages that include images, video and audio." ... in order to prevent possible misuse of MMS, immoral actions and social problems, the Telecommunications Ministry will filter immoral MMS," the television said.It did not give details of the techniques it would use to filter such messages, when it would start or how it would define "immoral" messages.
ABF, for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran
3 comments:
Not all capitalism is beneficial, we must remember. In Nazi Germany, companies had to strictly adhere to State operating codes and guidelines, and had little say over things like company policy for hiring/firing and such. In point of fact they became de facto parts of government and had very little real authority internally to the company.
The other end on divestiture and trying to use capitalism in State controlled ways is China. There Crony Capitalism, in which those favored by the government, get to skate on loans and, in point of fact, have undermined most of the economy there with bad loans. There the money is not actually being re-invested into the economy, but flows outwards in unaccountable ways. That is the gravy train of China and looks so very robust, like the Asian Tiger Economies just before their bubbles burst on Non-Performing Loans... Japan at 10% and most of the others in the 12-15% of GDP based on bad loans.
Capitalism is no sinecure to liberty or freedom. It does help, but it must be remembered that the US was an agrarian system at the Revolution and only industrialized Antebellum between the 1820's-50's. That system headed towards monopoly practices broken up by government laws as a cap on market influence. Going in the other direction has been rougher, since loosening up from government controls is usually a tooth and nail affair. The indicators in Iran will be who *owns* the companies, who *backs* them and if they are profit making. The regime has slowly ground that last down with their unrealistic market concepts and banking ideas. My guess is that there will be no foreign ownership allowed and the owners may be respected figureheads, but the backers will be sponsored by the IRGC.
And that does not make for any freedom and, in fact, makes repression easier as the State can mandate company contracts and those will be used as a cudgel against the unions. Call it: State ownership by proxy.
A Jacksonian: A million thanks. So, basically, this is going to be a more efficient way of plundering the national wealth while they can before it's too late...And the left/progressive supports these mullahs because they think the mullahs are "anti-capitalists".
The workers' party (a political group) is from communism which comes from the USSR. This is not capitalism.
When the employees were in need, this parasite (WP) swooped in to 'help' them. Ah, but they do not care about the employees either! They favor big bosses.
In Iran, unions are still needed because they do work with and for the employees. The WP does NOT.
This is where the problem comes. If some group gives itself a fancy name like Workers' Party, it makes it seem as though they care about workers, right? See? This is the same bull they do to seduce young children into becoming suicide bombers...is this good for the children???
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