On Saturday October 1, the Bandar Imam Petrochemical workers’ strike entered its seventh day. As on previous days, the workers of the Bandar Imam Petrochemical plant gathered in Mosharaf Square to protest in front of the head office of the petrochemical company.
At various times during the day they marched and shouted slogans in the square. On Saturday, in addition to chanting slogans like “Signing direct contracts is our absolute right” and “Benefits, benefits, are our absolute right” from previous days, they had new slogans including “Management threats no longer work”, “We won’t stop until we get a result” and so on.
According to a report by the Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers (FTUIW), at 2:30pm the plant’s security personnel called two of the workers’ representatives, Mansour Abbasi and Mohammad Bagheri, to their office. When the workers heard about this they immediately went to the main door of the security office to defend their workmates. They chanted “Security, security, let the guys go”, and said that they would not leave until their representatives had been freed. But at 3:30pm they noticed that their representatives were being transferred to the Intelligence Ministry.
In a meeting with the managers of the big sub-contracts the general manager of the petrochemical plant, Mr Zarifkar, said: if the workers clock in tomorrow [Sunday] then they can go to work; otherwise they will be prevented from clocking in. Also according to the decision of the petrochemical plant, from Monday the coaches transporting workers should not stop in front of the plant so that the workers would be unable to get to work.
According to another report that reached FTUIW, from Monday the workers will step up their protest to free their representatives and will resolutely continue with their strike and protest until they can sign direct contracts with the employer, the sub-contracting companies have been chucked out. They also said that they will not surrender to any threats or pressure.
There are 6,500 workers on strike at Bandar Imam Petrochemical plant in Bandar Imam Khomeini (Imam Khomeini port) in Khuzestan province, southern Iran.
According to the latest reports three of the Bandar Imam Petrochemical workers have been arrested he plant’s security personnel and taken to the Intelligence Ministry.
They are:
1- Mansur Abbassi, a worker employed by the Kharazmi sub-contracting company.
2- Mohammad Bagheri, a worker employed by the Sanayeh Fars (Fars Industry) sub-contracting company.
3- Jasem Badrani, a worker employed by the Kharazmi sub-contracting company.
Source: Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers (30 September 2011).
Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
6 October 2011