The Al-Maliki government in Iraq continues to enforce Sadaam Hussein's anti-labor laws that ban unions for public sector employees and create government-dominated sham labor organizations.  These laws were kept on the books by the U.S. after the invasion, and have been enforced by subsequent Iraqi regimes.  Relying on them, Al-Maliki's government has refused to recognize unions organized by workers themselves in the oil and other industries.  It has raided union offices, seized records, arrested and brutalized union leaders, and frozen union bank accounts - with the knowledge and cooperation of the U.S. occupation forces. 

 

From the day the dictatorship fell, Iraqi workers have demanded the right to organize their own unions, free of government interference.  They have demanded all of the rights established by the International Labour Organization - foremost the rights to freely organize, bargain and, when necessary, to strike.  The new Iraqi Constitution calls for the adoption of a basic labor law that recognizes and codifies these rights. 

 

The Maliki regime has instead ordered labor elections in June in which workers are to designate their unions and elect union leadership.  However, workers in all public enterprises (including the entire oil industry) are barred from voting, and the government retains the right to disqualify union leaders chosen by the workers in those elections.  The elections will apparently result in only one government-approved labor federation, rather than providing union pluralism required by ILO standards (and already established in fact by the workers themselves in the variety of labor organizations they created after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein).

 

It is in this context that John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, and Guy Rider, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), have written strong protests to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki.