On the occasion of International Labour Day, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, congratulated all workers of Iran. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported that Mrs. Rajavi shared her hope for this year being a “year of restitution of the rights of millions of honourable workers, men and women, who have been laid off and dismissed or have been doomed to live in fear, poverty and insecurity because their wages are not paid under white or temporary contracts”.
She praised those workers who have been imprisoned and said that the nationwide resistance and protests by workers shows that the ruling religious dictatorship is seen as the main source of oppression in the country. Thus, the clerical regime must be overthrown in order for the deprived workers of Iran to get the rights they should already be entitled to.
Mrs. Rajavi, expanding on the regime’s policies with regards to Iranian workers, said that people have lost their jobs and livelihood during the “unremitting trend of factories going bankrupt and the shutdown of 60% of industrial centres. The sale and fraudulent auctions of factories, the economic corruption and expansion of black markets, also the bankruptcy of banks and stepped-up import of foreign goods target Iran’s workers as their prime victims”.
She also pointed out that the “treacherous policy of allocating a lion’s share of the country’s revenues to the war and massacre in the region”, Syria in particular, is making Iranian workers more poor and destitute than ever. For a long time, many Iranian workers have been paid a minimum wage of one dollar per hour, and many more are not even receiving this. Purchasing power has plummeted 187% since 2009 and lay-offs and dismissals have risen sharply under Rouhani’s government. Mrs. Rajavi pointed out that those who still have work are not receiving their wages and do not have any job security because of temporary contracts. A majority of workers in Iran work under temporary contracts that were conceived to force workers into accepting low wages.
In a message to all Iranian workers, Mrs. Rajavi said: “The clerical regime and its various factions have built their subsistence on the plunder of your energy and livelihood. Nevertheless, their crisis-riddled regime is vulnerable to your solidarity and unity of action, despite its crackdowns.”
