Rouhani's election promise: We will withdraw the labor law bill

Hassan Rouhani promised to withdraw the labor law reform bill from parliament. Union activists see the bill as a threat to workers’ job security. Rouhani’s speech was met with protest slogans from a group that the ILNA news agency called “disruptors.”

On the fourth day of the presidential election campaign, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised to withdraw the labor law reform bill from the parliament.

According to Iranian media, Hassan Rouhani's speech at the Labor Day ceremony on Monday (May 1) was attended by Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ali Rabiei, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Mohammad Nahavandian, Chief of Staff of the President, Alireza Mahjoub, Tehran's representative in the parliament and Secretary General of the Workers' House, and Mohsen Hashemi, son of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Unsuccessful "disruption" during Rouhani's speech

According to the Iranian labor news agency ILNA, “more than 30,000 workers” attended the ceremony, which was held at the mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini. According to the same news agency, Hassan Rouhani’s speech was met with protest slogans from a “finger-counting” group.

ILNA wrote: "This grand ceremony, which was welcomed by tens of thousands of workers, was not to the liking of some of the people present at the ceremony who were affiliated with a specific political movement. These limited and few people, whose affiliation with some specific movements was not in doubt, began chanting slogans with the intention of disrupting today's grand ceremony, which were not only not welcomed by the thirty thousand workers present at the ceremony, but they also protested the out-of-the-box behavior of this small group and mocked them, asking them to respect the dignity and respect of the speaker of the ceremony and other workers."

This is while media outlets close to fundamentalist circles have spoken of the “strong criticism and protest” of the workers present at the ceremony against the performance of the 11th government. Tasnim News Agency and Nasim Online, among others, have published audio and video files and cited them, reporting that “the workers at the ceremony, with slogans such as “Mourning is mourning today / Day of mourning today / Worker’s life / Facing extinction today” and “Mourning is mourning today / Day of mourning today / The labor community is mourning today,” announced their protest against the performance of the 11th government.”

Tasnim wrote: "After the end of Rouhani's speech, the host of Hassan Rouhani's program on International Labor Day called the protesting workers who were demanding their legal rights "laborers" and threatened to smash their mouths."

Withdrawal of the “Bill” due to workers’ dissatisfaction

After the protests, which reportedly briefly halted the ceremony, Rouhani continued his speech. He said, "The bill prepared by the previous government for labor, according to the Minister of Labor, is not to the satisfaction of the workers, so I have ordered preparations to be made to withdraw it, and today I am announcing to the workers that we will withdraw this bill from the parliament."

The Iranian president added: "When Rouhani talks about security, the first thing he means is job security. The worst insecurity is job insecurity, and therefore we must try to put the lives of workers on the right track."

Labor organizations believe that the Labor Law Amendment Bill, which was submitted to the parliament in July of last year (2016), will jeopardize workers' job security if passed. Workers and labor organizations have called the bill "anti-labor and flawed" and have expressed their opposition to it in protest rallies.

According to critics, severe job insecurity, the removal of the age requirement for internships, the risk of freezing wages, and mass layoffs are among the possible consequences of passing the labor law reform bill.

The demand for the withdrawal of the labor law reform bill was also raised before Rouhani's speech by Alireza Mahjoub, a Tehran MP in the parliament. Mahjoub, the first speaker at the Labor Day ceremony, said: "The labor community demands the withdrawal of the labor law bill from the parliament in support of workers. This bill reduces the workers' sense of security and their livelihood. We expect you to take action to withdraw it."

The Secretary General of the Workers' House added: "Your attention to reducing recession along with inflation gives us hope that the continuation of your presidency will lead to an increase and prosperity in production and an improvement in the lives of workers."

Preventing workers from gathering in front of the parliament

Simultaneously with Hassan Rouhani's speech and his promise to withdraw the labor law reform bill, news was also released about the workers' unsuccessful attempt to hold a protest rally in front of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.

According to ILNA, today, a gathering of “a group of Tehran workers” in front of the parliament on the occasion of International Workers’ Day was opposed. The workers carried placards with the slogans “Increase wages, cancel temporary contracts, and freedom of trade union action.”

According to some media reports, the gathering of these workers began at the invitation of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, but security and law enforcement forces prevented it from taking place.

This comes at a time when Amnesty International, on the eve of International Workers' Day, has called for an end to the suppression of independent labor organizations in a statement and criticized the imprisonment and prison sentences of several labor activists in Iran.

This human rights organization has called on the Islamic Republic to unconditionally release those arrested for peaceful union activities and to quash the heavy sentences issued against other activists.

The statement also called for an end to the repression of independent labor unions and urged Iranian authorities to grant labor activists the right to assemble and join trade unions.

Amnesty International's statement names several activists who are in prison for their union activities. These include Esmaeil Abdi, a teacher and board member of the Iranian Teachers' Union, and Behnam Ebrahimzadeh, a member of the Committee for the Follow-up of the Establishment of Labor Organizations, who have been sentenced to 6 and 13 years in prison, respectively.

Amnesty International has also named Mahmoud Beheshti Langroodi, Mohammad Reza Niknejad, and Mehdi Bahlouli, members of the board of directors of the Iranian Teachers' Union, Mahmoud Salehi, a member of the Follow-up Committee for the Establishment of Labor Organizations, Davoud Razavi, Ebrahim Madadi, and Reza Shahabi, members of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company Syndicate, and Jafar Azimzadeh and Shapour Ehsanirad, members of the Free Workers' Union of Iran, as being at risk of being summoned and imprisoned.

These individuals were previously imprisoned on charges such as "acting against national security," "propaganda against the system," and "disturbing public order" and were temporarily released on bail.

Source: DW