The Labor Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran calls on the International Labor Organization (ILO), as well as all drivers’ and workers’ unions and syndicates across the world, to condemn the anti-labor policies of the mullahs’ regime and to support the demands of truck drivers, who are now on the sixth day of their strike. The truck drivers and owners, who have launched one of their largest strikes in recent decades, have stated their minimum demands as follows:
1. Reduction of the Crippling Insurance Premiums for Drivers: Mohammad Mohammadi, Deputy for Insurance Affairs at the Social Security Organization (in Khorasan), stated: “Some of the changes in insurance premiums for truck drivers are due to the implementation of the Seventh Development Plan,” adding that “under this law, drivers are categorized into three groups. The first group includes drivers of trucks, trailers, and intercity buses, whose total monthly salary is 17,700,000 tomans, and the insurance premium for this group is set at 4,700,000 tomans.” (Khorasan Newspaper – May 26, 2025)
Meanwhile, “the subsistence basket is priced at over 35 million tomans, and this figure is increasing daily” (Jahan-e San’at – March 16, 2025).
The salaries paid to drivers amount to only half of the subsistence basket as of March 2025. This gap has grown even larger over the past two months due to rampant inflation. Now, more than a quarter of this already meager income is deducted for insurance contributions.
2. Reduction of Fuel Prices: “The National Iranian Oil Company does not supply the necessary fuel for trucks,” and “truck drivers are forced to buy diesel fuel, which should be provided at 3,000 tomans per liter, for 6,000 tomans.” (Khorasan Newspaper – May 26, 2025) Consequently, the regime has effectively doubled the fuel price for truck drivers.
3. Timely Payment of Freight Charges: When drivers deliver goods, they sometimes have to chase their payments for up to four months.
These minimum demands of truck drivers and owners reveal the brutal exploitation inflicted upon this hardworking and underprivileged segment of Iranian society by Ali Khamenei and the mullahs’ vile regime. The largest production and distribution institutions and holding companies are controlled by Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and no social class in Iran is safe from their massive corruption and plunder. For instance, “Shasta” (Social Security Investment Company) operates nine major holdings across various sectors, all under Khamenei’s control. The retirement insurance fund is also continually looted by Khamenei, and the cries and protests of Social Security retirees are heard daily in cities across the country.
In this context, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said regarding the nationwide strike of truck drivers: “They are hard-working people who toil day and night under the harshest conditions, yet they bravely declare they will no longer submit to injustice. Through unity and protest, they will not allow the blood of their colleagues, spilled in the Bandar Abbas tragedy, to be in vain.”
Indeed, to reclaim the trampled rights of workers and the oppressed, the usurped sovereignty of the people must be restored through uprising, resistance, and the overthrow of the anti-labor clerical regime.
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
Labor Committee
27 May 2025