According to the Oil Workers’ Channel, on Friday, June 1, a group of official and operational employees of the Iranian Offshore Oil Company held a protest gathering at their workplace on Lavan Island. The workers’ demands include:
– Removal of infiltrators and incompetent managers
– Elimination of the salary cap
– Improvement of the minimum wage
– Removal of retirement bonus restrictions
– Full implementation of Article 10
– Payment of the back pay for Article 10
– No separation of jobs in operational areas
– Refund of excess deducted taxes
– Immediate announcement of merit increases.
This gathering continues the recent strikes and struggles of official and contract oil and refinery workers to achieve their rightful demands. The Council for Organizing Protests of Oil Workers also reported that on Monday, May 27, 2024, workers at Payandan Company, Exir Sanat, and IPMI Company in Phase 14 of Kangan, Petro Refining Sites 1, 2, and 3, Exir Company, Kayson, and Kian Sazeh entered the several days of their strike, which is ongoing. According to the report, over 1,000 project workers at Petro Refining Sites 1, 2, and 3 are on strike due to the refusal to increase wages as per their demands, and they have left the sites since May 21. Besides protesting low wages, Petro Refining project workers are also objecting to long 22-day and 24-day work shifts and deplorable safety conditions.
The report further states that more than 1,200 workers at Payandan, Exir Sanat, and IPMI in Phase 14 of Kangan have gone on strike, left their workplaces, and are in their dormitories, continuing their strike. Piping workers at Exir have also gone on strike and left their workplaces, demanding their March wages. Added to this are the strikes of workers at Kayson, who have stopped working due to unmet demands, and Kian Sazeh contract workers, who left their workshop demanding wage increases and immediate payment of their April dues.
The Council for Organizing Protests wrote that in response to the strikes for wage increases, exploitative contractors resort to all sorts of tricks. For instance, the CEO of Alay Mehestan Company sent workers on forced leave and hired new employees to replace them. This has angered and outraged the workers, who responded with protest gatherings. In some places, contractors try to halt the spread of strikes by promising wage increases and stalling.
Alongside the strikes and struggles of official and contract workers in the oil and petrochemical sectors, fighting Social Security retirees continued their protests with demands and political slogans on Sunday, May 26, in several cities, including Ahvaz and Kermanshah. They chanted slogans such as “The retiree is awake, hates discrimination!”, “Retiree, shout, demand your rights!”, “Free imprisoned workers!”, “Free imprisoned teachers!”, and “Excessive taxes, abysmal facilities!”
Steel retirees also held protest gatherings in cities like Tehran and Isfahan. For many months, they have continued their street protests against the non-implementation of resolutions and their rights. Their slogans included “One less embezzlement, many behind it!” and “Unity, unity, against poverty and corruption!”
The Iranian workers’ movement, along with the struggles of free women, militant retirees, justice-seeking plaintiffs, fighting youth, activists for political freedoms, and all freedom lovers, forms the main pillar of freedom and liberation struggles in Iranian society. It is within the heart of the working-class struggles and the unity of social movements that step-by-step, labor and mass organizations will be formed, becoming the driving force of the revolution in Iran. Men and women workers in Iran have shown in recent years through their struggles, strikes, just demands, and stances that they are moving towards achieving such a capacity.
