The so-called “unofficial” workers’ strike, because they work for multiple subcontracting companies without permanent contracts, in the oil, petrochemical and gas sector begins here but stops elsewhere after negotiations with the employers. The Protest Organizing Council announced on October 4, 2021, that the workers of the Parsian gas field transport unit had ended their strike, specifying that it was temporary. They will wait two months and if the agreements are not respected, the movement will start again.
As the workers put an end to the strike temporarily, the drivers of trucks and machinery at the Gatchsaran petrochemical complex began a strike on October 3.
The Haft-Tapeh sugar cane workers union (unrecognized and even banned by the government) announces the 8th day of strike action for October 5, 2021.The workers left their workplace to demonstrate in the streets of the city of Susa (Shush in Farsi). Their demands are: payment of salary arrears, designation of the management of the company (the current management is dismissed by court decision), reinstatement of workers made redundant (for having participated in various movements of Haft-Tapeh), extension of contracts seasonal workers and those in the pest suppression section, stop legal proceedings against lawyer Farzaneh Zilaïy (lawyer for the workers of Haft-Tapeh, prosecuted for this and it is the workers who defend her).
On October 5, some 500 workers from the Sungun open-cast copper mine (located 130 kms. From Tabriz, capital of West Azerbaijan province) walked out and gathered in front of the companies’ offices. subcontractors. Indeed, they are scattered in 5 different companies. They demand increased wages and improved working conditions. They are obliged to work under fixed-term contracts of three months while some of them have between 15 to 20 years of seniority.
Kerman coal mine workers have been on strike for eight days . But on October 4 the police forces of the “special unit” came to suppress their peaceful assembly at the Dachtkhak crossroads near Kerman. A woman and a child were injured and taken to hospital.
These mines are either private or semi-public. The workers demand equal pay for the two sectors and the end of fixed-term contracts (89 days). They also want social security contributions to be paid and a career plan established. They are between 900 to 1000.
Teachers from elementary to high school organized rallies and protests across Iran. This Sunday (non-public holiday in Iran) October 3, 2021, teachers gathered in 50 cities for their demands, for salaries and against the nefarious laws currently simmering in the Islamic Assembly (the Iranian parliament). The teachers also protested against the continued detention of fifteen colleagues in the prisons. The arrest of Aziz Ghassemzadeh this same Sunday, October 3 particularly moved, not only the teachers but many viewers. Ghassemzadeh is a teacher who is active in the Center Syndical des Professeurs du Guilan (a province in the north of the country). The Coordinating Council of Teachers Union Centers in Iran called for the October 3 rallies. Ghassemzadeh was explaining live on a Persian-language television station abroad the aims and demands of the teachers for these gatherings. Suddenly, several agents of the regime’s political police knocked on the door and forced their way into it. Ghassemzadeh said on television: “The security guards are coming. Her cell phone was left on for a while. We then hear his mother begging the officers not to do violence to her son and not to take him to prison. An agent notices that the telephone is working and cuts it violently. Although tens of thousands of Internet users have demanded, on social networks, the release of Ghassemzadeh, but he is currently still in detention and it is feared that he will be tortured.
Finally, let us add that several militant workers are either in prison or summoned to go there, among others:
Chapour Ehsani-Rad, sentenced to 5 years and currently in the prison of Greater Tehran; Nahid Khodadjou, sentenced to 5 years and summoned for sentence; Nasrin Djavadi, sentenced to 5 years and summoned for sentence; Heydar Ghorbani, sentenced to 11 years; Sadjad Chokri, currently sentenced to 5 years in Evin prison; Arach Djouhari, sentenced to 10 years and currently in Evin.
The list of worker and teacher prisoners is not exhaustive and neither is the number of workers’ strikes.
