Thousands march in Iran labor protest

[Scarecrow]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/01/iran.jobs.reut/index.html
TEHRAN, Iran, (Reuters) -- Thousands of Iranian workers on Monday protested the growing use of short-term employment contracts. It was the most vociferous May Day demonstration the Islamic state has seen in years.

The protest came as a reminder to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that, although embroiled in an international dispute over his country's atomic ambitions, he was elected to improve living conditions for the poorest members of society.

Short-term contracts, while better paid than regular staff contracts, allow bosses to fire workers more easily and cheaply.

"The contract worker is a slave as he lives in fear of being sacked," said Aliasghar Ghaliaf, 37, who has worked in a textile factory on a permanent contract for 19 years.

Iran's government says 10.9 percent of the workforce is unemployed, but some economic analysts say the real figure could be nearer 25 percent.


Seems like the Domestic situation in Iran needs the same amount of attention from the Govt. as the International situation is getting. Perhaps Iran should spend less time on getting nukes and new weapons and more on fixing the labor issues it has.

I would say that sanctions from the UN Security Council could have more effect then Iran admits.

[Iranian Monitor]

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/05/01/iran.jobs.reut/index.html


Seems like the Domestic situation in Iran needs the same amount of attention from the Govt. as the International situation is getting. Perhaps Iran should spend less time on getting nukes and new weapons and more on fixing the labor issues it has.

I would say that sanctions from the UN Security Council could have more effect then Iran admits.

The same protestors were also chanting slogans in support of Iran's nuclear program.

As for the labor issue, they should sound familiar to Americans. The issue has to do with 'contract laborers' who aren't protected by labor protection laws in Iran. The issue is somewhat akin to union versus non union workers in the US, except in Iran labor protection laws for workers generally are quite strong and resemble the protections that unionized workers enjoy in the US. The contract workers, however, don't enjoy those protections, which account for the growing trend by businesses to hire them. (Again, the issue is very similar to union versus non union labor in the US).

[Scarecrow]

The same protestors were also chanting slogans in support of Iran's nuclear program.

As for the labor issue, they should sound familiar to Americans. The issue has to do with 'contract laborers' who aren't protected by labor protection laws in Iran. The issue is somewhat akin to union versus non union workers in the US, except in Iran labor protection laws for workers generally are quite strong and resemble the protections that unionized workers enjoy in the US. The contract workers, however, don't enjoy those protections, which account for the growing trend by businesses to hire them. (Again, the issue is very similar to union versus non union labor in the US).


Yet with a much higher unemployment rate then in the US

[Iranian Monitor]

Yet with a much higher unemployment rate then in the US

It was actually to fight unemployment that 'contract worker' provisions were introduced, allowing businesses to hire folks who didn't enjoy the same protections as regular workers. If you hire a regular worker in Iran, you are required to provide him/her with heath insurance, cannot fire him except for good cause and without paying several months salary as severance pay regardless, and have to comply with a host of other provisions that give labor a lot of leverage over business in Iran.

As for unemployment figures, they are politicized. The correct figure, both by the government and IMF, shows an unemployment figure below 11%. There are, however, a lot of people who are employed in the black market in Iran, which basically means that while unemployment figures in the US understate the real figures by not counting those who have given up searching for work, in Iran they overstate the numbers by not counting the large number of people who work in the black market economy.

To further confuse matters, Western journalists often cite "some economists" -- all of a certain political bent -- who try to confuse folks by using figures relating to special sectors (youth unemployment especially) to make politicized points about unemployment in Iran. The fact is that while unemployment is a serious issue, the Iranian economy has been producing more jobs the past few years than the US economy! Its just that given Iran's young population, the economy has to produce over a million new jobs each year just to break even and that is a tough task for any economy. Even one growing by more than 5% each year.

Being in Iran, I see this as a very rich country. Much more so than I anticipated before coming here. What surprised me even more was how much the wealth is spread to even what were traditionally less privileged sectors in Iran. South Tehran lookss affluent compared to South LA. Traveling throughout different parts of Iran, I felt many of the rural places were more livable than similar places I had encountered traveling across the US. There are some very poor regions in Iran, neglected for long, which do have abysmal living conditions. There are also groups such as Gypsies, some Arabs, and some Baluchis, along with Afghan immigrants and ilegal workers from some other countries (Bangladesh etc) that live poorly. By in large, however, the socio-economic divide I anticipated coming here is overstated when looking at the issue on a comparative basis, while the socio-cultural/political divide is more real.