NCRI – The Iranian Resistance urged residents of Tehran, and in particular workers and wage-earners, to support the strike of Tehran bus drivers and their just demands. The Resistance called on all workers and residents in Tehran to resist the ploys and repressive measures undertaken by the clerical regime to suppress the protest.
Workers at Tehran’s Sherkat Vahed (Tehran’s bus company) have for years suffered from economic hardships, low wages, difficult working conditions, and lack of minimum professional bonuses as a consequence of the Iranian regime’s repressive policies. The situation has deteriorated considerably for bus drivers in recent months, especially after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken office as the new president of the clerical regime.
Authorities in the Iranian regime have attempted in recent months to sow division within the ranks of the company’s workers and have delayed responding to their just demands, held back on wage payments, and attempted to prevent workers’ protests and strikes.
The regime’s repressive security forces have in recent weeks arrested a number of the workers. Some of those arrested are being held in Evin prison in Tehran and others at the Intelligence Ministry prison. Authorities in the regime have also shut down the Internet website belonging to the workers and actively prevent the formation of any independent workers union or association.
Anti-labor councils called Islamic Workers Councils form part of the repressive apparatus of the clerical regime against workers. Workers Houses are also under the control of such councils.
The Iranian Resistance calls on labor unions and international advocates of workers’ rights to condemn the Iranian regime’s anti-labor and repressive policies. The Resistance also calls on the International Labor Organization to review the situation of Iranian workers in its next conference in Geneva.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 25, 2005