Haft Tappeh: From the continuation of workers' protests to the termination of the contract to transfer the factory to the private sector

Nearly three months have passed since the start of a new round of protests by workers at the Haft Tapeh Sugarcane Farming and Industry Company in Khuzestan Province. The protesting workers of this large Iranian industrial complex have been engaged in a new wave of continuous and uninterrupted peaceful protests since late June of this year, which is now approaching its 90th day. The foundation of the problems, dissatisfaction of the workers and the protests in this industrial complex was formed when the management of Haft Tappeh was transferred to the private sector. This happened in 2015, and now, after five years, the "Court of Accounts" of the Islamic Republic of Iran, after investigating the manner of transfer, performance and status of the Haft Tappeh Khuzestan Sugar Cane Company, has demanded the termination of the contract to transfer this factory to the private sector.

One of the most important demands of the workers during their protests has been to determine the status of the factory management and dismiss the current CEO of the complex, Omid Asadbeigi. A demand that does not seem far-fetched given the Court of Accounts' announcement to terminate the transfer contract.

The transfer of the factory to the private sector and the escalation of workers' suffering

Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory is located 14 kilometers from the city of Shush in Khuzestan Province. It is a large factory located on a land area of ​​24,000 hectares and has been officially operating since 1961. Despite numerous management changes over the years, it was practically under government management until 2015.

Currently, Haft Tappeh has nearly 5,900 workers, some of whom are permanent workers and others are seasonal workers.

In February 2015, the country's Privatization Organization transferred 100% of the company's shares to two young men, aged 28 and 31. These two were managers of the companies "Zeus" and "Ariak", who became the owners of this huge factory with an advance payment of 60 billion rials.

According to the privatization organization, the Haft Tappeh factory owed the Social Security Organization about 150 billion tomans before it was transferred. In other words, the factory managers had not paid workers' insurance premiums for years.

Ali Ashraf Abdullah Puri Hosseini, head of the Privatization Organization at the time, said that the company's accumulated losses in 2015, before being transferred to the private sector, were about 345 billion tomans, and that the salaries of the company's workers and employees had not been paid for "seven months."

Since the transfer of the Haft Tappeh Agricultural and Industrial Company, protests have begun regarding the form and method of this transfer.

Labor rights activist Meysam Al-Mahdi told the Human Rights Campaign, "It is said that the factory owes large sums of money to social security, while all these years, workers' insurance premiums have been deducted from their monthly salaries."

This labor rights activist believes that the announcement of the factory's debt to Social Security over all these years indicates that the "battles" between the factory managers and the Social Security Organization have caused this debt throughout this period, while the losses are all on the workers, including the managers who deducted workers' insurance premiums from their salaries (even their daily wages), but the Social Security Organization has never been paid.

According to this labor rights activist, declaring debt to the Social Security Organization is indicative of a corrupt system intertwined between factory managers and government officials.

Critics of the transfer believed that the announcement that the company was “loss-making” at the time of the transfer was questionable and that this issue was raised so that buyers would buy the company for less. Also, many workers of the complex believed that the advance payment of 60 billion rials to buy the factory was low and unfair for a complex that only owns 24,000 hectares of land.

Meysam Al-Mahdi says that this method of declaring the factory to be loss-making has been used before. According to him, years ago, during the transfer of the Ahvaz Steel Factory to the Amir Mansour Aria Group, it was announced that the factory had produced 800,000 tons before the transfer, but a year after the transfer of the factory to the private sector, it was claimed that the factory's production had reached 1,800 tons, while no noticeable change occurred in the factory's production process during the year and the problems of the workers in that complex continued.

However, handing over the Haft Tappeh factory to the private sector did not solve the numerous problems of the workers, and shortly after the private sector took over management of the factory, the foundations of the Haft Tappeh workers' protests were formed.

The most important protests by Haft Tappeh workers date back to November and December 2018. The main protests by Haft Tappeh workers at that time were related to wage arrears and non-payment of health insurance premiums, as well as protests against the management of the private sector. During several days of protests and strikes by workers, Esmaeil Bakhshi, a representative of Haft Tappeh workers, was arrested.

After arresting Esmaeil Bakhshi, security forces subjected the labor activist to mental and physical torture and forced him to make forced confessions.

During these protests, labor rights activist Sepideh Gholian was also arrested by security forces and forced to make a confession, which was broadcast on Iran Broadcasting.

After the arrest of Ismail Bakhshi, a wave of arrests and summons of Haft Tappeh workers began. A number of workers who had protested and gathered in protest of the arrest of Ismail Bakhshi were arrested by security agencies. Mohammad Khneifer was among the workers who was arrested by the Susa Intelligence Department and transferred to an unknown location.

At that time, Amir Amirgholi, Sanaz Allahyari, Asal Mohammadi, and Amir Hossein Mohammadifard were also summoned and arrested in connection with the Haft Tappeh workers' protests. These individuals were labor rights activists and journalists who covered news related to the Haft Tappeh workers' protests.

After the continued arrest of Esmaeil Bakhshi and the summoning and threatening of another group of Haft Tappeh workers by security forces, a group of Haft Tappeh workers complained to the International Labor Organization's Freedom Committee about the continued arrest and repression of labor activists by the Iranian government .

In part of the letter from the Haft Tappeh workers, referring to the continued detention of Esmael Bakhshi, a representative of the protesting Haft Tappeh workers, Sepideh Qolyan and Amir Amirgholi, social activists, and Sanaz Alhayari and Amir Hossein Mohammadifar, a journalist couple, it was stated: “The families of these detainees are all under pressure and harassment not to discuss their situation. Security and judicial authorities have told some families that the more news about the prisoners’ situation leaks to the media, the heavier their sentences will be.”

The second wave of labor protests and the holding of a trial for young Haft Tappeh managers

After the Haft Tappeh workers protested against the non-payment of wages for several months, the non-payment of workers' insurance premiums, and the way the factory was handed over to the factory's CEO, Omid Asadbeigi, as CEO, made many promises about the factory's revival and the return of the laid-off workers. These promises were never fulfilled until the second wave of Haft Tappeh workers' protests resumed in late June 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic in Iran.

The resumption of the second wave of labor protests coincided with the arrest of Omid Asadbeigi, the CEO of Haft Tappeh, on charges of disrupting the country’s currency system. Asadbeigi, who was identified as the main defendant in this economic case, appeared in court but was released on parole for a long time. One of the charges against Omid Asadbeigi is the sale of “one and a half billion dollars” of government currency on the “open market.” Money that the young CEO had received under the pretext of expanding the factory and sold on the open market instead of spending on the factory.

At the beginning of their protests, Haft Tappeh workers clearly stated their demands by writing a report; receiving arrears of wages, payment of insurance premiums, returning fired colleagues to work, and canceling the privatization of the company were announced as the most important demands of the workers.

The workers' report also states: "The workers are complaining about the conditional release of Omid Asadbeigi by the judge in the case for paying the salaries of the personnel and the failure to pay them. The workers say that the person who is a violator should be dealt with by the judiciary according to the severity of the crime committed. What is the reason for the first-degree defendant to be free and the rest of the criminals in the case to be in prison?"

The report noted that the workers had developed the mindset that he (Omid Asadbeigi) was using the issue of the rights of the sugarcane company's personnel as "judicial immunity" and a "human shield to avoid arrest" and ultimately "not being sentenced and not going to prison."

After a month of continuous protests by Haft Tappeh workers, Farzaneh Zeilabi, a lawyer for Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers, announced the arrest of four workers of this industrial unit by the Intelligence and Security Police of Shush city.

Farzaneh Zeilabi said in an interview with the Emtaed website on Tuesday, July 14: "Four of my clients, Muslim Cheshmekhavar, Yousef Bahmani, Ebrahim Abbasi, and Mohammad Khanifer, were arrested by the Intelligence and Security Police of Shush City and transferred to Dezful Prison."

According to Farzaneh Zeilabi, Mohammad Khanifer and Yousef Bahmani were arrested while they were infected with the coronavirus and were recovering.

At that time, Mohammad Reza Dabirian, another Haft Tappeh sugarcane worker, was also summoned by the Shush City Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor's Office on charges of "insulting officials and spreading lies and slander" and was sentenced to 222 lashes.

The sentence of 222 lashes was issued to this worker in circumstances where Mohammad Reza Dabirian was also infected with the coronavirus and, accordingly, had requested a retrial from the court.

One of the court sessions was also attended by one of the Haft Tappeh workers. Where Yousef Bahmani, a representative of the Haft Tappeh workers who had come to court, addressed Judge Masoudi and said: "Mr. Judge, whenever their case [Omid Asadbeigi and Mehrdad Rostami, the owners of Haft Tappeh and accused of currency smuggling] comes up, they use the workers as human shields."

Referring to the arrests and the filing of cases against protesting Haft Tappeh workers, the worker also said: "Mr. Judge, why do they file cases against me and dress me in prison clothes when I, a worker, claim my rights, but Omid Asadbeigi is walking around in a suit with this huge amount of corruption? Where is the justice in this?"

Yousef Bahmani, stating that he had traveled a thousand kilometers and collected thousands of tomans to bring other activists to this court to be the voice of the workers, said: "Since the private sector came here, it has achieved nothing but misery, misery, and disaster."

Yousef Bahmani stated two of the demands of the Haft Tappeh workers as follows: "Declaration of the dismissal of these gentlemen and payment of all demands, from salaries and insurance to other demands."

The third hearing on the Omid Asadbeigi case was held on August 20th, with the presence of the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance, the head of the Privatization Organization, a representative of the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare, a representative of the Court of Accounts, a representative of the Governor of Khuzestan, and labor activists from the company. In this meeting, Seyyed Nizam al-Din Mousavi, a member of the Article 90 Commission of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, said that “if the issue of the expropriation of the employer of Haft Tappeh Company is not resolved by the Privatization Organization and the Ministry of Economy, we have no choice but to use our authority to impeach the Minister of Economy.”

Now, after investigating the manner of the transfer, performance, and status of the Haft Tappeh Khuzestan Sugar Cane Company, the Court of Auditors has demanded the termination of its transfer contract, which is actually a sign that the workers are getting closer to one of their demands.

However, on Monday, September 8, the Telegram channel of the Haft Tappeh Workers' Union published a text in response to the Court of Accounts' decision announcing a one-day suspension of strikes and protests, writing: "More victories are on the way!"

The statement said: "In these circumstances, it can be said that the workers have achieved their first victory and taken a step forward, because with their strike, they forced the parliamentarians to answer. However, the demand for complete divestment from the private sector was one of the main demands of the workers that must be fulfilled."

The statement states that "Haft Tapeh workers know very well that the struggle will continue until the private sector is completely divested, and that the problem will not be solved by the departure of Asad Beigi, Rostami, and their colleagues alone, but rather the privatization system must be dismantled, because it is not just the pieces of this game that are going to change."

The statement of the workers' union emphasized that "the ownership of Haft Tappeh should not be in the hands of any other individual, organization, or institution. Haft Tappeh workers are the only ones who can best manage and administer Haft Tappeh's sugarcane cultivation and industry."

Labor rights activist Meysam Al-Mahdi says that the possibility of terminating the contract to transfer the work to the private sector does not mean that the problems and sufferings of Haft Tappeh workers will be resolved quickly in the coming months.

Mr. Al-Mahdi says that if this transfer is terminated, there will be three futures for the factory management; one is that, as some protesting workers say, the factory management will be returned to the government. That is, the same situation that existed before the transfer to the private sector. The second scenario is that the factory management will be managed in a council-like manner, with a council management of workers, as the majority of the workers want. The third possible scenario for determining the factory management is to transfer this factory to another person or persons in the private sector. This is the path that, according to Mr. Al-Mahdi, is the government's final choice for managing this factory.

Meysam Al-Mahdi told the Campaign for Human Rights in Iran that "it was government officials who no longer wanted the current management, and the change in Asadbeigi's management and the cancellation of the transfer of the factory to them was not done because of the workers' demands and their protests."

This labor rights activist says that all government agencies, from the government and the privatization and social security organizations to the judiciary, have joined forces to increase pressure on the labor community and increase worker protests and strikes.

This labor rights activist says that given the widening of labor protests in Iran and the extension of these protests from factories in the south of the country to other factories across Iran, such as Isfahan and Arak, we will witness a very large wave of labor protests and strikes in the coming months.

Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign