Corona; Workers at a Crossroads Between Life and Livelihood
A specter has cast a shadow over the world and threatens the livelihood of one and a half billion workers. Job security and wages are the primary demands, but priorities and achievements are now obscured. In Iran too, the working class will be the first target of economic hardship.
305 million full-time jobs have been lost. This is the fruit of corona, and the world stands on the brink of the worst economic recession in the past 90 years. In the Great Depression of 1929, the unemployment rate in America reached 25 percent. Now the International Labour Organization warns that the deterioration of economic conditions will affect the livelihood of one billion and 600 million workers around the world. Guy Ryder, the director of this organization, says that for millions of workers who have no savings or financial credit, cutting off income is nothing but cutting off access to food, security, and the future.
Across the world, 3.3 billion people earn their bread through daily wages and informal occupations. This group has no insurance and medical facilities, has never heard of “home office,” and their cheap and tangible presence is needed by employers. The International Labour Organization says that in the first month of the corona crisis, the income of this group of workers decreased by about 60 percent.
In Iran, the Ministry of Labor is silent, but the Parliamentary Research Center has estimated that between 2 million 870 thousand to 6 million 431 thousand of current employees will lose their jobs due to the spread of the virus. This decimal figure seems somewhat to largely incorrect given the population of 14 million workers. In just one instance, 70 percent of construction and seasonal workers have lost their jobs. Many employers in service and production units have also asked workers to leave; they said “go and we will let you know.”
World Workers’ Day arrived in such circumstances. Everyone was asked to stay at home, oblivious to the fact that this recommendation should be conditional for workers and the deprived: “If you have money, shelter, and insurance, stay at home.”
A Bad Year, a Shock Year
This year, no gatherings, marches, gatherings, or ceremonies will be held to commemorate Workers’ Day. At least the good thing about it is that no one is being arrested merely for participating in May Day ceremonies. Labor activists in Iran have launched a Twitter campaign demanding a minimum wage of 9 million tomans, and independent unions have issued statements. The first clause of the 15-article resolution of the “Free Union of Iranian Workers” is devoted to an immediate increase in minimum wage, payment of unemployment insurance to unemployed workers and young job seekers. The United Company Workers’ Union and independent organizations of teachers, workers, and retirees are also calling for the freedom of all imprisoned political and trade union activists, equal rights for women and men, a minimum wage commensurate with inflation, and an immediate halt to child labor.
Iran’s working class, with 40 percent inflation and a weak labor market, has become more impoverished than ever. The threat of corona provided an opportunity for employers to institutionalize the cheapening of labor, postponement of wages, and verbal contracts. Construction workers, daily wage earners, street vendors, workers in specialized and service units, uninsured workers—all of them were left to their own devices in the corona crisis without any income and support. They cannot even earn money through the usual routine of passenger transportation; there are no passengers.
IRNA reports that some workers at the Fasa sugar factory, due to months of non-payment of wages, have turned to garbage collection and buying and selling old plastic and waste materials. The head of the union of restaurant and cafeteria owners in Tehran reports the dismissal of 1,100 workers over the past two months in Tehran. 700 drivers of urban transport fleets in Qazvin have been working half shifts for two months and their wages are 55,000 tomans a day. 50 workers at the Shine Weaving Factory in Sanandaj have been fired. 200 workers of “Iran Merinos Qom” have been referred to the insurance office.
Concurrently with the corona crisis, another calamity has befallen working-class families. The Supreme Labor Council approved a wage base that only covers daily bread and cheese. The poverty line is 4 million 940 thousand tomans, but according to employers and the government, the minimum wage for workers was set at 1 million 835 thousand tomans. Doesn’t this mean facilitating and accelerating hardship?
Half Plus One Population
In Iran’s 2016 census, the number of workers in the country was registered at 14 million. This figure includes those covered by labor law and social security insurance. Self-employed, daily wage earners, and seasonal or contract workers were not included in this figure. The same official figure, accounting for a household size of 2.3 persons, covers nearly 60 percent of Iran’s population.
This population, with meager income, barely manages the minimum food and drink, let alone the costs of housing, clothing, transportation, medicine and treatment, or education. Economic recession and the shutdown of production units, however, take away this shaky financial support from working-class families. The head of the association of construction workers in Mazandaran announced that workers in this profession do not even have money to buy bread.
Javanmir Moradi, a member of the association of workers in Kermanshah and a member of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, told Deutsche Welle: “The corona crisis has exacerbated workers’ challenges. Seasonal and construction workers have been left behind and have suffered the most damage. They suffer both from the general pressure caused by illness and are forced to go to work while workplace health protocols are not being observed. It is strange that instead of releasing prisoners in these circumstances, a number of other labor and civil activists have been summoned and arrested. The shadow of unemployment, insecurity, and security threats still hangs over workers, especially when everyone should be concerned with preserving people’s lives.”
Silent Deaths
Providing safety standards is the responsibility of the employer, but due to consensual contracts and the lack of insurance for workers, there is no legal oversight in production centers. In the first half of 2019, forensic medicine recorded 898 deaths caused by work accidents, 354 of which were related to falls from height. On this basis, on average, five Iranian workers lose their lives in work accidents daily. Out of every three construction workers, one reaches retirement age and the other two become disabled. Dozens of porters lose their lives annually in the heights of Kurdistan. In the latest accident, two workers at a factory in Najafabad Industrial Park fell into the paper recycling machine tank while working and were crushed.
Alirezа Navai, a member of the “International Union for the Protection of Workers in Iran,” told Deutsche Welle: “The number of workers who become victims due to violation of work standards is six times greater than work accidents. They get sick in factories and production units, develop lung problems, suffer from bone rheumatism… On the subject of corona, there is no transparent data to say how many workers have been harmed. It is said that 40 people were infected at Petrochemical Urumia, but it is being covered up.”
In reviewing the labor record of 2019, he points to an increase in suppression and the infiltration of security forces into labor unions: “We recorded 1,259 protests in 2019, which shows a 25 percent decrease compared to 2018, and the primary reason was rampant suppression. Every year, the most labor protests occur in February, but this year the working class was caught up in corona like everyone else. The next point is that after the 2018 protests at the Ahvaz sugar and steel complexes, Basij students and security forces focused their attention on direct presence in production units. They tell workers there’s no need to protest and gather. Tell us your words and requests, we will mediate and get your rights.”
Two years ago, hundreds of workers, at the invitation of independent unions, chanted in front of parliament: “Bread, housing, freedom, are our inalienable rights.” Now workers must bargain with employers for the most basic primary rights, including obtaining masks or sanitary materials at the workplace, and accept minimums for fear of being laid off. The economic consequences of the pandemic have not yet become apparent, but the voice of poverty and inequality is rising. It is not far off that working-class families may need even plain bread and renters may become homeless. Perhaps congratulating Workers’ Day under these circumstances is salt on the wounds of these families.
Source: DW
