10,000 Workers’ Signatures Delivered on the Living Conditions

Iran Labor Report

On September 22, 10,000 additional workers’ signatures were delivered to the Ministry of Welfare, Labor and Social Affairs. The signatures were on the petition originally signed by 10,000 workers protesting the high cost of living and inadequate minimum wages.

The new signatures were gathered from Tehran, Kurdistan, Mazandaran, East Azerbaijan, Yazd, Khuzistan and from workers of factories such as Iran Packing Company, Kian Tires, Aras China, Dana Pharmaceuticals, Vahed Bus Company, Saveh Rolling Profiles, Avangan, Arak Industries, Gozin Steel, Railways, construction workers, engine manufacturers, Tabriz Matches, Kooshk Mining, etc. The coordinators have reported 10,000 more signatures being on the way.

The new signatures have found high traction in the media in Iran with several papers and news outlets reporting on them. One head of the Coordinating Association of the Islamic Labor Councils in the Fars province, supporting the 20,000 signature petition, has also reported of a similar petition drive in the province of Fars.

Accompanying the 10,000 new signatures, the coordinators of the petition have written a second letter to the Minister of Welfare, Labor and Social Affairs, the translation of which is provided by ILR below.

Minister of Welfare, Labor and Social Affairs, Honorable Sheikholeslami

With Greetings,

This is our second letter to your excellency. We, as the coordinators of the petition on the wage rates and related workers’ living and working conditions , delivered a letter with 10,000 signatures to your ministry on June 16, 2012 . Three months have passed since then and you have not given any response to the petition from thousands of workers.

Wage thefts, layoffs, temporary contracts, job insecurity, wages much below the poverty line, inflation and high prices are rampant. Many foodstuff and essentials are leaving us workers’ empty coffers on a daily basis and at unbelievable pace. Since late last year, ending in March, and especially in the past few months, the living expenses have risen several fold. There are no commodities or services in this country that have not had their prices raised tens of percents in this period. From highway tolls and transportation expenses to construction material and rental costs to banking services and registration offices to prices of dairy, bread, chicken, eggs, meat and fruits to eduction, healthcare and in short all necessities of life have at times increased by multiples of times. This staggering increase in prices especially in the past year has taken place while the median salary of us workers in this period has only raised by 13 percent and the average monthly wages for millions of workers, if not already joined the ranks of the unemployed due to the cuts in subsidies for energy and plant closures and receive their timely wages, is between 300 to 700 thousand tomans – 245 to 570 US dollars by the official rate -a month. We, in our last letter, pointed to this issue and emphasized this undeniable fact that such wages, especially in the provincial capitals, do not suffice for the rental costs of the even smallest housing facilities. Then under such conditions, you, as the Minister of Welfare, Labor, and Social Affairs and as an organ that has deprived us our rights to fix the rate of selling our labor and have instead placed fixing the minimum wage under the authority of your own ministry not only have not uttered a single word but have not also even bothered to respond to our written demands signed by thousands of workers. As it appears, your ministry does not have anything to do with workers and their lives and livelihood.

Honorable Minister! In the three months since our first letter and delivery of the petition of the workers to the Ministry of Welfare, Labor, and Social Affairs, in addition to the rise in prices, in tens of large and medium size factories, the employers have cut lunch and other benefits such as production and efficiency bonuses as well and only are paying the base wages. Hence, the difference between the wages and the daily costs of living has reached catastrophic levels and is threatening the very existence and life of working families. Thus, emphasizing and insisting on an immediate and urgent increase in minimum wages for the remaining six months of the year, we are delivering ten thousand new signatures on the petition to object to the existing wage rates and other working and living conditions of the workers and once more insist on securing the demands of the millions of workers endorsed in their petition.

It is self-evident that in case of disregard for the demands, lives, and well-being of millions of workers by the Ministry of Welfare, Labor, and Social Affairs, the workers who are on verge of being crushed under the heavy burden of inflation and rampant high prices will not just stand idle and be witness to the destruction of their lives and will scale up their protests to the continuation of the current conditions.

Representing the coordinators of the protest against the low minimum wages: Shapour Ehsanirad, Sharif Saedpanah, Jamil Mohammadi, Sheith Amani, Parvin Mohammadi, Jafar Azimzadeh

September 22, 2012
cc: Presidential Office to Address People’s Complaints
Islamic Parliament Deputies