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An interesting article on labor and privatization in Iraq: http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=9408
Most interesting snippets:
As some of y'all might remember, a couple months ago I posted an article about leaders and members of the Union of the Unemployed being detained. Looks like the practice is continuing.
Most interesting snippets:
Iraqi workers look at the prospect of privatization with dread. Dathar Al-Kashab, manager of Baghdad's Al Daura oil refinery, predicted that privatization would have an enormous effect. "A worker starting here today has a job for life, under the old system," he explains, "and there's no law which permits me to lay him off. But if I put on the hat of privatization, I'll have to fire 1500 [of the refinery's 3000] workers. In America when a company lays people off, there's unemployment insurance, and they won't die from hunger. If I dismiss employees now, I'm killing them and their families.
In 1987, Saddam had another unpleasant surprise for Iraqi workers. He issued a law declaring that the class struggle was over. Workers in state-owned enterprises were no longer to be considered workers at all, but civil servants. As such, Saddam said, they had no right to organize unions or bargain. On the Umm Qasr docks and in factories and refineries throughout the country, unions were effectively banned.
Anti-Union Law Upheld by Occupation
Today that 1987 law is still being enforced by the US occupation authority. The law affects workers employed in the enterprises set to be privatized, and that is why it hasn't been repealed as hundreds of other Saddam-era laws have been. If those workers have no legal union, no right to bargain, and no contracts, then privatization and the huge job losses that will come with it, will face much less organized resistance.
On June 5 CPA head Paul Bremer put another weapon into the anti-union arsenal. He issued a decree called Public Notice Number One, prohibiting "pronouncements and material that incite civil disorder, rioting or damage to property." The phrase can easily be interpreted to mean strikes or other organized labor protest. Those who violate the decree "will be subject to immediate detention by Coalition security forces and held as a security internee under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949" - in other words, as a prisoner of war.
US occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions on December 6, when soldiers arrested eight members of [an umbrella labor group's, the Workers Democratic Trade Union Federation's,] executive board, and took them into detention. Although the eight were released the following day, there was no explanation from the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Anti-Union Law Upheld by Occupation
Today that 1987 law is still being enforced by the US occupation authority. The law affects workers employed in the enterprises set to be privatized, and that is why it hasn't been repealed as hundreds of other Saddam-era laws have been. If those workers have no legal union, no right to bargain, and no contracts, then privatization and the huge job losses that will come with it, will face much less organized resistance.
On June 5 CPA head Paul Bremer put another weapon into the anti-union arsenal. He issued a decree called Public Notice Number One, prohibiting "pronouncements and material that incite civil disorder, rioting or damage to property." The phrase can easily be interpreted to mean strikes or other organized labor protest. Those who violate the decree "will be subject to immediate detention by Coalition security forces and held as a security internee under the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949" - in other words, as a prisoner of war.
US occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyze Iraq's new labor unions on December 6, when soldiers arrested eight members of [an umbrella labor group's, the Workers Democratic Trade Union Federation's,] executive board, and took them into detention. Although the eight were released the following day, there was no explanation from the Coalition Provisional Authority.
what's efficient about corporate CEO's stealing millions from investors, getting golden parachutes for driving a company into financial ruin, gutting a workforce which erodes consumer base...
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