In a wide-ranging interview, Maziyar Guilaninejhad, Coordinator of the Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics in Iran (UMMI), assesses the current situation for trade unionists.

 IT: Could you give us a short description of the present conditions of independent workers organisations and trade unions in Iran? Read more

Dear US Steelworker Comrades

In recent months and weeks, the US administration has adopted a dangerous approach and policy in relation to our country.  By leaving the JCPOA agreement, which had global backing and had been endorsed by the UN Security Council, as well as the resumption of economic, financial and banking sanctions on Iran, the Trump administration have engineered extremely difficult conditions for the working people of Iran and created a hugely threatening situation in the Middle East.  President Trump is trying to impose his adventurous policies in favor of a tiny number of people in the United States and the global capitalist system. Read more

UMMI’s Statement for Peace

Global capitalism needs a war to get out of its self-created crisis and would not hesitate to sacrifice Iranian and American youth in imposing the cost of its economic downturn onto the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. Read more

Dear Mr. President Hassan Rouhani,

I am writing this letter to you as the General Secretary of IndustriALL Global Union, which represents more than fifty million workers in mining, energy and manufacturing sectors in more than 140 countries, including Iran, to urge you to intervene to guarantee the immediate release of trade union leaders and activists, who were unlawfully detained on 26 April, 29 April, and on May Day. Read more

Dear Comrades,

I wish to thank you very much for your solidarity message.  IndustriALL Global Union fully appreciates the struggle of the Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI), and is also fully aware of the difficult conditions under which you are operating.

We are proud of counting on the UMMI as one of our affiliated unions, and working together to further the rights of workers in Iran, and elsewhere in the region, and the rest of the world.

IndustriALL Global Union reiterates its full support of your struggle to achieve decent working conditions in different industrial sectors, which includes fighting for fair wages and salaries, secure employment, compliance with strict safe and health standards, and overall achieve full respect of fundamental labour rights such as Convention 87 on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize, and Convention 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

May Day gives us the opportunity to take stock of what the labour movement has achieved worldwide in the last 150 years or so, and reflect and develop new strategies on how to tackle new challenges, including massive precarization of working conditions, new working conditions (digitalization, robotization, artificial intelligence, platform economy), and the urgent need to deal with climate change while ensuring a Just Transition for workers.

In solidarity,

Valter Sanches
General Secretary
IndustriALL Global Union

Dear Comrades of IndustriALL Global Union

On the eve of May Day, the International Workers Day, the Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI) once again salutes you, and through you all the affiliates and members of great IndustriALL Global Union.  We wish you all vital successes in your ongoing struggle for fair wages and salaries, for secure employment, for trade union rights and for more secure, safe and humane working conditions across the world.

In Iran the workers across industries and various sectors of the economy have waged a consistent and brave struggle to demand their rights including due wages, end to privatisation, trade union rights and implementation of international ILO standards that Iran is a signatory to and is obliged to do so.

The UMMI has continued its difficult but consistent and rewarding work to ensure that it effectively represents the interests of our sector and that our organisation has the capacity to campaign effectively on the key issues of concern to workers in Iran.  Amongst these concerns at present are peace, jobs, wages and trade union rights.

We thank you for working with us and assisting us in the important but difficult tasks we have set ourselves.  We are confident of success.

Long Live May Day!

Long Live International Solidarity!

The Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran

29^th April 2019

To the General Secretary of DISK

To the Executive Committee of DISK

Dear Comrades of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK)

We have been informed that Comrade Arzu Cerkezoglu, President of the Confederation of Progressive Trade Unions of Turkey, has recently been tried and is facing a three-year prison sentence for a speech she gave during a panel discussion organised by Turkey’s main opposition party, CHP, in June 2016.  In her speech, Comrade Arzu had criticised certain aspects of the policies of the current government in Turkey. Read more

06.12.2018

A wave of strike action across the province of Khuzestan has led to the arrest and torture of leading activists.

Workers at the Iran National Steel plant in Ahvaz have taken strike action on several occasions over the past year, in an ongoing dispute to demand unpaid wages and the return of their factory to public ownership. They have formed solidarity links with workers at the Haft Tappeh sugarcane complex in the city of Shush, who have been on strike for more than a month over unpaid wages and alleged corruption by managers.

Read more

What is currently happening in the world with regards to our country Iran, is not intended to improve the working conditions and livelihood of the working people of Iran, but is a full-scale war against the Iranian working people and waged earners. US imperialism is leading policies aimed at changing the political map of the Middle East and Iran.

Fellow brothers and sisters of trade unions across the world!

Be aware that the policy of imposing unilateral economic sanctions on Iran by the great powers, in particular the United States and its allies, is the beginning of an unfair and unequal war against Iran’s working class. These sanctions will lead to the closure of the country’s manufacturing plants, rising unemployment, increasing costs of food, medicine and the essential goods for Iranian people. These sanctions will create a golden opportunity for middle men and profiteers, with no harm done to the warmongers who will use this opportunity to get richer by amassing and hoarding essential goods needed by the working people, welcoming wars and conflicts.

Fellow brothers and sisters in America and Europe!

To prevent this catastrophe, we urge you to put pressure on your governments not to join these terrible sanctions and not to use your taxes for war efforts in the embargo of medicine and food against the Iranian workers and wage earners. Please request that your Members of Parliament to use your taxes for your country’s progress and not for the destruction of the livelihood of Iranian working class families.

In countries where trade unions are influential on policies adopted by parliaments and governments, we urge our brothers and sisters in the metalworkers unions to demand from their respective governments not to join these sanctions and to support the Iranian labour movement and their families against the anti-labour policies, wherever they originate from.

Dear trade union comrades in Europe and America,

Let us unite, hand in hand, to organise an effective movement to fight against the threat of economic sanctions and war and to prevent the repeat of the calamities of Syria, Iraq and Libya to the Iranian People.

Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI)

20 August 2018