Letter from Workers at Kaavian Steel Company

Iran Labor Report

The following letter has been received from workers at Kaavian Steel Company in Ahvaz not far from the Persian Gulf.

There is a reservoir at the Kaviaan Steel where 9 of us go inside it in groups of 3 every day to clear out the waste blocking the sewage. The only equipment issued are boots and gloves. These workers must descend to 8 meters below surface where the first 3 meters is open-surface and without water and muck but in the 5 meter below there is muck together with industrial oil and methane gas. The workers here have often no knowledge of water pressure and condensed slough in the pipes; pipes which collect all the waste to this point. Nor do workers know about the threats to their lives from methane gas.

Under orders of the service chief, anyone disobeying orders should be fired on the spot. An unemployed individual is immediately brought in as substitute worker.

A few days ago, after emptying all the muck and oils inside the reservoir, the opening section was burst open because gas pressure and the person next to it named Saeed Khanipour lost consciousness while trying to escape the reservoir. He fell into it and was drowned. Two others also lost consciousness and are in coma.

The main culprit for these accidents is the Kaavian Steel which has been trying to do cost-cutting and enriching Rasoul Salimi Namin, a man who has grabbed 4 former government-owned steel firms at dirt cheap prices.

A relative of the deceased worker, Saiid Khanipour who tried to shoot pictures of the reservoir with his mobile phone was stopped and questioned by the security. They had told him “you are shooting this to put it up on the internet so we are going to confiscate your telephone set” to which he had replied “you have killed so many people and the films are put up on the internet and none of you have got into trouble; so what’s the worry?” They took away his telephone.

We beg you to publish information about our conditions. Doing so would be give us some hope.