Ba’athist Yellow Unions are not allowed to represent Trade Unions in Iraq!
On 30/11/2003, a rally was organized by the so-called Workers’ Revolutionary Party to mark the 34th anniversary of their organ “News Line”. They had invited two Ba’athist trade unionists, Karim Hamza and Jammel Aljabouri Secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq (these trade unions exited during the previous regime). I went along to this meeting to distribute publications of the Union of the Unemployed in Iraq, a post war union established by the unemployed workers to demand their rights. But what I came across was disgusting and outrageous. The generous welcome and applaud offered to these Iraqi Ba’athist trade unionists were unbelievable. Members of the WRP told me and my friend Dashti Jamal who is representing the UUI in London to go out and not to distribute our literature. I tried, in case they were not aware of the affiliation of those Iraqi trade unionists and that they were supporting Ba’athist unions and this was clearly an act against the workers in Iraq. The funny thing was that they were exchanging niceties and international greetings and solidarity in the name of workers in Iraq. My attempts to inform them of the true nature of the trade union that their guests were representing were in vain. The “General federation Of Trade Unions in Iraq” is commonly known in Iraq as the Yellow Union and it was a Ba’athist union.
During the Ba’ath regime there were no independent unions and the trade unions at that time were controlled by the regime and they were a tool at the hands of the Ba’ath regime to suppress workers and exploit them in many different inhumane ways. These Unions played a crucial role in sending thousands of workers to the war fronts during the Iran – Iraq war. These union leaders took pride in reporting to the security forces those refusing to go to the fronts. Countless numbers workers met their death as a result of the actions of the so-called trade unionists. Also these unions implemented the Ba’ath regime’s policy of changing the word Worker to “Officer” in an attempt to eliminate workers demands and say that there is no such thing as working class in Iraq, and that every one who works is an “officer” not a worker. The history of the Ba’athist trade unions is as grim and bloody as the history of the Ba’ath regime. They have only played a destructive role in the lives of workers in Iraq. These unions were working, and promoting the anti workers policies of Ba’ath party in which workers had no rights of association, strikes, and freedom of speech and expression. Since the collapse of the Ba’athist regime the genuine and real workers movement has expressed its manifestation in various ways.
The workers in Iraq have managed to present a radical agenda of change and to carry forward the demands of workers. The establishment of the Union of Unemployed, the workers councils, and the union of Oil Workers Company in the North of the country and also the preparatory committee for establishment of workers councils and trade unions which is having its first conference in Baghdad on 8/12/2003 to establish the real workers unions are a few example of the extend of the current workers movement in Iraq. All these workers organizations have been set up with direct participation of workers themselves to advocate and promote their rights, welfare and freedom.
The Union of the Unemployed in Iraq have carried out many mass strikes since its establishment in (1/05/2003) to demand jobs, security and welfare for the unemployed workers in Iraq, and this union has more than 130,000 members across Iraq. Its leaders are workers who have been resisting the Ba’ath regime, and they have endured intimidation and arrests by the coalition forces for defending workers, and the unemployed people of Iraq. These are the real people and representatives of workers in Iraq. The Workers’ Revolutionary Party is trying to help to restore the rein of the Ba’ath party in the name of workers solidarity. The working class in Iraq has been the silent victim of the regime and have suffered untold hardships at the hands of the Ba’ath regime and its so-called trade unions.
Promoting this kind of people who have the blood of Iraqi workers on their hands is a disgrace. Supporting and providing a platform for these people is an affront to the Iraqi working class and is tantamount to collaborating in the atrocities committed against the workers in Iraq.
I call upon all workers, trade unions and leftist parties in the UK and across the world to boycott these yellow unions and any kind of Ba’athist initiatives by any one who is trying to damage the struggle of workers and their true Trade Unions and workers organisations in Iraq. I call upon all of you to support the radical workers, women’s and youth movement in Iraq through giving your support to the Union of Unemployed, Organisation of Women’s Freedom, and preparatory committee for the establishment of workers councils and trade unions in Iraq.
Houzan Mahmoud
Member of Worker communist party of Iraq / Britain committee
Tel: +44 (7956 88 3001)