Labor & Employment Law

AFL-CIO Protests Saddam-like Iraqi Labor Order

By James Parks

As U.S. combat troops head home from Iraq, new evidence shows there is much to be done before all Iraqis are truly free. In a letter to Iraq?s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka strongly protests a recent government order that bans all trade union activities in the government-owned electrical industry.

The order by Iraq?s minister of electricity prohibits ministry officials from dealing with unions and instructs them to take back all the benefits electrical unions have negotiated in recent years. More ominously, it orders the ministry, along with the police, to close all electrical union offices and take control of their assets.

In the letter?which also was sent to Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton?Trumka reminds Al-Maliki that Iraq is a member of the International Labor Organization (ILO) and must abide by international treaties such as the ILO rules on the right of workers to join unions.

Trumka likens this order and other anti-union actions by Iraqi officials to those of  the deposed dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, saying Al-Maliki’s government

continues to implement anti-union labor laws and practices which originated in a far less democratic and less hopeful era of Iraqi history.

Trumka calls on Al-Maliki to ?immediately take all necessary measures to stop this unjust government attack on worker rights? and to stop implementing laws that restrict trade union organizing and collective bargaining,

 until such time as the Iraqi legislature can enact new laws that live up to the promise of a new, democratic Iraq that Iraqi workers deserve.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 20, 2010 (boomark / email).