Occupied Iraq imposes ‘Saddam style’ ban on oil union

Iraq’s energy ministry is using a Saddam-era decree to crack down on trade unions and stifle dissent against foreign exploitation of the country’s vast oil reserves, the Basra-based oil workers’ union claims.

Hassan Juma’a, the union’s leader, has been at the forefront of a public campaign against the signing of a controversial new oil law – demanded by Washington – that would lead to long-term profit-sharing contracts being signed with multinational oil giants.
But Hussein Shahrastani, Iraq’s oil minister, has now issued a directive banning unions from participating in any official discussions about the new law, ’since these unions have no legal status to work within the state sector’.
Juma’a said the minister’s approach echoed an infamous law passed by Saddam Hussein in 1987 – the so-called ‘Article 150′ – suppressing trades unions. He insisted this weekend that his members would not recognise the directive, saying ‘we are working for Iraq’.

Iraq’s new constitution, passed in 2005, enshrines ‘the right of forming and joining professional associations and unions’, and promises that ‘this will be organised by law’; but since no such legislation has yet been passed, campaigners say the oil ministry is simply reverting to Saddam-era laws that banned unions.

‘This means the union has lost any negotiating rights as regards their terms and conditions, as well as in regard to discussions of the oil law,’ said Sami Ramadani of Naftana, the UK-based support committee for the union, who is himself an exile from Saddam’s regime. ‘The union is definitely defying this, and it has the support of the workers: that’s its strength.’

Infoshop