Today, in Iran, contrary to what is happening all over the world, all trade union activity is prohibited. By banning independent trade unions, the regime of the Islamic Republic intends to implement the neoliberal policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund without encountering any resistance. But the workers do not resign themselves and go on strike and protest. The multiplication and extension of workers’ strikes in recent years has put the regime of the Islamic Republic in a delicate situation, and its only response to the daily problems of the masses is the intensification of political repression.
Today in Iran, workers’ strikes in hundreds of factories and workshops, large and small, as well as strikes by teachers, nurses and pensioners … have greatly intensified. All the poor strata of society are expressing, in various forms, their dissatisfaction with the catastrophic situation.
Today, in Iran, the imprisonment and torture, even flogging of workers in public, an ancestral practice of humiliation, banned by all the world’s human rights laws, aimed at creating a climate of fear and intimidation, is not an exceptional phenomenon.
Today in Iran, the payment of workers’ wages is delayed even by more than a year in some cases, a situation aggravated by the criminal economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. imperialists on Iran. This is damaging the very lives of the workers.
Workers in Iran are deprived of their basic rights such as the right to strike or to form trade unions or all kinds of independent organizations to defend their rights and livelihood.
Workers in Iran do not have the right to demonstrate on May 1, International Workers’ Day. The theocratic capitalist regime does not recognize May Day and severely represses those who dare to celebrate it in the streets.
The theocratic regime of the Islamic Republic, having seen the result of the revolutionary engagement of the workers in the glorious 1979 Revolution, brutally opposes the formation of all kinds of independent workers’ organizations and prevents any possibility of unity of the working class.
To prevent the closure of the factories, the workers have no choice but to unite and show solidarity and resist the pro-capitalist system. Any working progress increases the level of consciousness and self-confidence of the workers.
The International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO) expresses its solidarity with the various struggles of the workers of Iran against the closure of factories, for wage increases, for the payment of wage arrears and for the right to form independent workers’ organizations. We declare our firm support to the workers of Iran who are struggling in exceptional circumstances and we will use all our means to draw the attention of the peoples of the world to this intolerable situation in Iran.
Live the struggles of the workers and peoples of Iran!
Long live international solidarity with the struggles of the workers of Iran!
International Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations
February 2021