Gilana Tile Factory Workers Long Haul Strike

Iran Labor Report

More than 160 Gilana Tile factory workers in Manjil, Gilan, have been on strike since September 16 over 16 months of back wages and other trade disputes. During the strike, eight workers have been summoned by police and twenty two expelled.

The back wages date back to 2009 over which workers had filed three separate complaints with Roudbar Labor Office. In the same period, about 70 of the retired workers have not been able to receive their pensions.

The factory, while being in business for long time, faced troubles stemming from mismanagement and increase in cost of production. The factory ceased operation on November of 2013 with workers only showing up to work and punching cards until April, 2014 when the factory reopened with a new employer. A condition for the new employer to take helm was to pay workers back wages which did not materialize. The workers have also lost their health care benefits as the dues were not paid to Social Security for eight months.

Since resumption of operations, the workers wages have also not been paid in full each month.

The workers protest started by staging a gathering by the local governor offices in city of Roudbar on September 16 continued on a second day on 17th. On the third day, the workers stopped production when the employer expelled two workers and filed complaints against 10 on grounds of sedition and eight of them were called into the security police headquarters on the fifth day of protests. The seven male and one female worker summoned were Alireza Yahyai, Mehdi Keshavarz, Mousa Mohseni, Esmail Jamshidi, Gholamali Chegini, Jahan Salimi, Javad Azizkhani and Tahereh Fathi. The expelled workers were Mehdi Kazemi and Ahmad Mirzai.

In addition to their earlier demands, the workers added the return of their expelled co-workers to those demands. In an agreement reached between the workers representatives and the temporary supervisor at the factory on the fifteenth day of the strike, the two expelled workers returned to the factory.

On the 20th day of the protest, about 30 workers held a protest rally by Manjil Labor Office for an hour.

On the 24th day of strikeو the management put an offer to buy the factory which was eventually withdrawn.

On the 33rd day of the strike, 100 workers held a meeting in the cafeteria of the factory and called for setting up a workers’ organization at the plant.

On the 37th day of the strike, the employer expelled 20 of the contracting workers in the factory.

On the 40th day, the workers embarked upon selling left over materials and old machines in the factory in order to supplant their wages.

On the 42nd day of the strike, the workers prevented factory property to be removed by a creditor under court order. Two managers, Hossein Afshar and Ghorbanzadeh, were charged with obstruction of justice and called in to court subsequently in this regard.

On the 46th day of the strike, the workers resorted to selling the olive from the trees in the factory compound to compensate for their lost wages.

On the 53rd day, the workers were able to receive 100 thousand tomans out of their 16 months wages due through selling some of the tiles in factory storage and selling five tons of olives from the trees in the factory compound. The workers divided 12 Million and 20 thousand tomans received equally among the 128 workers.

According to Sohrab Ghanbari, a lawyer specializing on labor rights, talking with Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), the government should intervene to resolve such conflicts according to articles 142 and 143 of the Labor Law. According to the Law, first the arbitration committee should first investigate the contentions through either of the workers and employer side of the conflict. The two sides have 10 days to protest the ruling by the committee. It will be then the conflict resolution committee’s task to hear the complaints and issue a ruling which the sides have 3 days to counter. It will be the head of the Labor Office of the region then that has to report the details of the conflict to the Ministry of Labor which until resolution of the conflict by the ruling of the Council of Ministers, the factory can be run in place of the employer. According to Ghanbari, the Labor Office in Manjil should have activated the arbitration and Conflict resolution committees earlier and reported to the Ministry of Labor. He also pointed to “the law on promotion of industries and prevention of factory closures”, in which a five member committee from representatives of Ministries of Labor, Economy, Plan Organization and Chamber of Economics are to take over running the factory on temporary basis. The workers are then to be paid from the revenue generated in that period.