A labor organization announced that “more than 17,500 oil project workers in over 75 contracting companies” in various regions are on a full strike.
The Council for Organizing Protests of Contract Oil Workers (Third Party) wrote on June 22, noting the start of the project workers’ strike from June 19: “Eliminating contractors, increasing wages, and also 14 days of work and 14 days of rest” are the main demands of the striking workers.
The striking workers have also emphasized the necessity of improving dormitory conditions, working conditions, and workplace safety.
The regime’s ILNA news agency also wrote on Saturday: “With the arrival of summer, a new wave of protests by project workers and continuous projects in the south of the country in the oil, gas, and third-party sectors has begun, with the main demand being the consideration of changing work times and eliminating contractors.”
According to this report, the new protest campaign of the striking workers, under the slogan “All workers’ tables are the same” and named “14-14,” has started in refineries, petrochemicals, and other oil and gas centers and third-party sectors, and these workers went home after handing over their tools.
Meanwhile, according to ILNA, with the publication of the news of the project workers’ protest campaign, Alireza Mirghafari, a member of the board of directors of the Supreme Association of Labor Unions, reported the sending of threatening text messages in support of contractors to the active protesting workers.
In recent years, project workers have repeatedly gone on strike in protest of their living conditions. Additionally, the number of labor protests such as strikes and gatherings in various regions of Iran has been on the rise over the past few years. These protests have mainly been due to unpaid wages, low wages, layoffs from factories and companies, and privatization.
Meanwhile, the Etemad newspaper wrote in a report on Thursday, June 20, that “an examination of labor protests over the past 27 months, from March 2022 to June 2024, shows that during this period, thousands of coal, copper, iron ore, and chromium miners in the provinces of Kerman, Mazandaran, Yazd, Razavi Khorasan, South Khorasan, and Semnan have demanded their legal rights in gatherings that lasted from a few hours to several days and weeks.”
Amidst the propaganda for the sham elections, the regime’s selected candidates are busy giving deceitful and repetitive promises, but workers and retirees, away from this clamor and indifferent to it, are busy protesting and striking to obtain their rights. This shows that Iranian workers have no hope of improving their situation by participating in elections.
It is worth noting that in the Iranian government, no independent labor unions or syndicates are allowed to operate, and the regime prevents workers’ protests and strikes by any means possible. The other so-called unions are under the regime’s control. Employers of oil and petrochemical companies, all of which are affiliated with government institutions such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), threaten and fire workers.
Contract workers, despite working in these projects for years, do not receive any rights, and sometimes their meager wages are delayed for months. It should be noted that working in oil and gas fields is extremely difficult and exhausting, and workers are forced to work in temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius for up to 12 hours.
