Open
World Conference of Workers
In Defense of Trade Union Independence & Democratic Rights
1) Pamphlet Distribued Throughout Iraq by the Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions of Iraq (FWCUI)
2) The Newspaper of the Union of Unemployed of Iraq (UUI) Publishes Its Platform of Demands
To All the Workers of Government-Owned Enterprises and Diverse
Establishments and Offices of Iraq:
The appalling working conditions and low salaries have led to a
constant degradation of the workers' living conditions, a growing misery
that barely allow workers and their families to survive under the present
circumstances.
The present salary scale penalizes the workers. The new work
classifications do not take into account the difficulty of the work
performed, nor the working conditions that expose the workers to an
increasing number of accidents. This new classifications do not take into
consideration the gap between the better-paid workers and the mass of
workers who in general earn thirty times less. These classifications
introduce enormous disparities, which lead the majority of society into
poverty, preventing them from offering their families a dignified and
decent life.
The workers constitute the only layer of a society that lives from their
salaries. That salary represents the only source of revenue. All attacks
against our salaries by the authorities or government institutions are
therefore a source of improverishment and misery.
Every day thousands of workers are striking at their workplaces against
the current salary classifications; they are demanding another
classification that takes into account the cost of living.
The workers do not want to waste their energy in a series of disjointed
and isolated actions to obtain a salary scale in accordance with their
claims. That is why they are regrouping into unions to make their claims
and demands prevail.
Only through strikes and by fighting steadfastly for their rights can the
working class succeed in compelling the authorities to heed their demands.
Only the organized workers can make their will prevail.
The Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions of Iraq (FWCUI) calls
on all the workers and employees of public sector enterprises and all the
factories to come to a demonstration around these demands on Sunday,
February 16, 2004.
The demonstration will gather opposite the offices of the Federation in
Baghdad at the entrance of the Al-Rasheed St., close to Matam Al Turkiet;
it will continue toward the headquarters of the provisional authorities,
the former headquarters of the Ministry for Planification.
We appeal to all public sector workers to participate.
Federation of Workers Councils and Trade Unions of Iraq (FWCUI)
February 9, 2004
(reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 68 -- March 2, 2004)
***********************
2) The Newspaper of the Union of Unemployed of Iraq (UUI)
Publishes Its Platform of Demands
For a Labor Code Ensuring Social Progress
Our demands:
1. Total and unconditional freedom to organize
2. Total and unconditional freedom to strike. The right to strike must not
require previous authorization from the state or any other authority.
Wages must be authorized throughout the strike. The striking workers must
have access to the media. Any ban on a strike because of a state of
emergency or attack on the security of the state must be illegal.
3. A ban on replacing striking workers by persons not belonging to the
enterprise, the armed forces or the police.
4. Recognition of May 1 as international workers' day. May 1 must be a
holiday.
5. National negotiations for a yearly increase in wages.
6. Equal pay for equal work for men and women.
7. Creation of unemployment insurance indexed over the last salary
received for all unemployed over 16 years of age. Creation of disability
insurance.
8. Application of international norms for health and security. Creation of
a national organism of medical insurance financed jointly by employers and
the state, but independent from the employers.
Appeal published in The Voice of Iraqi Workers, newspaper of the
UUI
(reprinted from ILC International Newsletter No. 69 -- March 9,
2004)