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Iraqi Unionists in Washington, DC, to Protest US Oil Drain From Iraq    [

    Analysis: Oil Strikers Met by Iraqi Troops
    By Ben Lando
    United Press International

    Thursday 07 June 2007

    Washington - On the third day of an oil strike in southern Iraq, the Iraqi military surrounded oil workers and the prime minister issued arrest warrants for the union leaders, sparking an outcry from supporters and international unions.

    "This will not stop us because we are defending people's rights," said Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of IFOU. As of Wednesday morning, when United Press International spoke to Awad via mobile phone in Basra at the site of one of the strikes, no arrests had been made, "but regardless, the arrest warrant is still active." He said that the "Iraqi Security Forces," who were present at the strike scenes, told him of the warrants and said that they would be making any arrests.

    The arrest warrant accuses the union leaders of "sabotaging the economy," according to a statement from British-based organization Naftana, and said that Maliki warned that his "iron fist" would be used against those who stopped the flow of oil.

    IFOU called a strike early last month but put it on hold twice after overtures from the government. Awad said that at a May 16 meeting, Maliki agreed to set up a committee to address the unions' demands.

    The demands include union entry to negotiations over the oil law that they fear will allow foreign oil companies too much access to Iraq's oil, as well as a variety of improved working conditions.

    "Apparently they promise but they never do anything," Awad said, confirming reports that the Iraqi oil ministry would send a delegation to Basra.

    "One person from the ministry of oil accompanied by an Iraqi military figure came to negotiate the demands. Instead it was all about threats. It was all about trying to shut us up, to marginalize our actions," Awad said. "The actions we are taking now are continuing with the strike until our demands are taken in concentration."

    The strike by the Iraq Pipelines Union in Basra started Monday, instigated by a decision by the Iraq Pipelines Company to stop regular bonuses to workers. It is part of a larger picture, however, of 17 different demands laid out - beginning last month - to the Iraq oil ministry and Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki by the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions.

    Since the strike began, two small pipelines delivering oil products to Baghdad and other cities have been closed, as has a larger pipeline that sends gas and oil to major cities, including Baghdad, and utilities.

    The strike started with domestic pipelines transporting oil and oil products, but Iraq's top oil unionist says that it will soon encapsulate the 1.6 million barrels per day of oil Iraq sends to the global market.

    Basra, home to much of Iraq's 115 billion barrels of oil - the third-largest reserves in the world - is also Iraq's main port. Awad said that the unions will continue to restrict all oil exports, which bring in 93 percent of Iraq's federal budget funds. Such a move, combined with the choking off of much-needed supplies of transportation, cooking and heating fuels, is what the unions hopes to use as leverage against Maliki.

    Awad said "the atmosphere here is full of tension," and added that he wants to pressure the government to agree to their demands, not topple an already-weak Maliki government.

    "At the end we are hoping that the situation will not go that way," Awad said.

    Maliki has been unable to meet a key benchmark set by the Bush administration and backed by the Democratic-led Congress: to pass an oil law. Many in Iraq, including oil experts and parliamentarians, are calling for the law to be put on hold. Negotiators have not been able to agree on the best means of revenue distribution, whether central or regional governments will have more power in the oil sector, or how much access foreign investors will have.

    Manfred Warda, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers' Unions, Wednesday sent a letter to Maliki condemning his tactics in addressing the strike. "Genuine and democratic trade unions are a cornerstone of democracy and at the same time are a force for reconciliation, peace, and stability in a society," Warda wrote.

    The Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation and London-based Trades Union Congress have also condemned the military action and arrest warrants.

    A top official with the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers' Union said that his contacts say that the strike had been toned down while negotiations were underway, but has not ended.

    "The strike began purely and simply at the pipeline," said Jim Catterson, the energy industry officer for Warda's federation, based in Brussels. IFOU "has membership capable of bringing an end to exports."

    Kamil Mahdi, an Iraqi economist on Middle East affairs at the University of Exeter, said that Maliki's swing from agreement with the unions to a military presence and warrants is "very surprising," and arresting the leaders will not quell the workers' demands.

    "It may be the opposite. These are people who are highly respected in the community," he said. If the strike is not stopped soon, "the effect on the global oil market will certainly be felt."

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    Hiba Dawood contributed to this report.

 

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    Iraqi Unionists in Washington, DC, to Protest US Oil Drain From Iraq
    By James Parks
    AFL-CIO

    Wednesday 06 June 2007

    The U.S.-backed government has proposed a new law in Iraq that would permit what the oil industry calls "production-sharing agreements" that could put 70 percent of the profits from oil sales in the hands of rich oil companies and leave the Iraqi people with little to run their country.

    The plan, which was supported by the U.S. State Department as early as 2003, also has the backing of the International Monetary Fund and some powerful Iraqi political leaders. In fact, the rapid opening up of Iraqi oil for "private investment" is one of the benchmarks in the Iraq funding bill, which Congress passed and President Bush signed recently.

    Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, president of the Electrical Utility Workers Union, General Federation of Iraqi Workers, made it clear workers are fighting the law:

The oil law is a bad for the Iraqi people. It is not fair or equitable. It's just another name for privatization.

    Muhsin Hussein, the only female union president in Iraq, is on a 26-day, 12-city tour of the United States sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW). Today, she joined a rally in Washington, D.C., to protest the oil law outside the offices of BearingPoint.

    BearingPoint is the contractor hired to promote the oil law, which was written by a committee of technocrats who talked with the Big Oil companies but ignored the state-run national oil company and the workers, Hussein says. It's part of an overall effort to privatize state-owned industries.

    USLAW is urging workers to write their members of Congress to support legislation that would:

• Not link military withdrawal from Iraq to adoption of the oil law;
  
  
• Demand that the Iraqi government and U.S. military authorities abide by recognized international labor standards, including the freedom to form unions;
  
  
• Remove all U.S. military forces from harm's way by immediately withdrawing all troops and private contractors from Iraq; and
  
  
• Fully respect Iraq's sovereignty.

    The protest comes one day after oil workers, members of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, struck the pipeline company in Basra, bringing an immediate stop to the free flow of oil products, including kerosene and gas in one pipeline. The pipe transfers oil and gas to Baghdad and the central region of the country. The workers are demanding an end to control of the pipeline from Baghdad because of mismanagement.

    Muhsin Hussein also met with AFL-CIO President John Sweeney today and addressed a group at the AFL-CIO in Washington. Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Southern Oil Company Union, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, who planned to join her on the tour, was delayed in Iraq with visa problems. He is expected to join the tour Wednesday. (For a complete schedule of the tour, click here.)

    Muhsin Hussein says that although workers had hoped the end of the 35-year brutal reign would usher in a pluralistic, open society, life for everyone in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein is characterized by a lack of security or basic laws, unemployment and now the threat of a lack of funds to run their government.

    Muhsin Hussein says the war has devastated her country and the lives of workers. Unemployment is rampant, affecting mostly women and youth. She estimates that 60 percent of Iraqis are jobless and that 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.The infrastructure is completely destroyed. There is little electrical power and few bridges or roads. Emissions from armaments have so polluted the environment that workers are beginning to get sick and many are suffering from terminal illnesses, she says.

    Muhsin Hussein says U.S.-backed laws have taken away trade unions' property and made it hard to join unions. The government also has not repealed laws enacted under the former regime that prohibit public employees from joining unions.

    In a first-hand account of his trip to Iraq at AFL-CIO headquarters, photojournalist David Bacon pointed out that unions are more prevalent in Basra because the area was under the control of the United Kingdom after the fall of the former regime. The U.K. administration was more supportive of unions, Bacon says, than the United States.

    The AFL-CIO Convention in 2005 called for a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, and in March 2007 the Executive Council reaffirmed the convention resolution. Hussein says that's what Iraqi workers want. She praised the AFL-CIO stance and said:

Keep up the pressure on the administration to end the occupation and let us run our country.