AN UNPRECEDENTED  wave of protest by workers at the Iran Khodro automobile company has engulfed the largest manufacturer in this sector in Iran since the dispute broke out in late October, with industrial unrest spreading across the company's three major sites in the country.
 
Iran Khodro (IKCO) was founded as Iran National in 1962 with HQ in Tehran. The publicly listed company manufactures all kinds of vehicles and was estimated to have reached production of as many as 688,000 passenger cars per year as of 2009.

According to reports from the sector’s Union of Metalworkers and Mechanics of Iran (UMMI) early in November, the workers at Khodro's factory in Tabriz showed their unhappiness at pay differences between themselves and those at other IKCO plants elsewhere in Iran.

The Tabriz workers complained to management over the pay disparity and salary levels, which have remained largely static despite the increased prices their cars were being for.

According to Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) reports from Tabriz, the workers gave the decision by IKCO management to postpone the monthly payment of salaries as the reason for their strike. 

Workers’ representatives have also pointed out that IKCO had witnessed a five-fold increase in the retail price of the cars they produced over the last two years, while the wages remained unchanged.

In addition there are significant wage disparities between the different IKCO centres despite the fact that workers are essentially undertaking the exact same tasks. Thus far the bosses have largely remained unmoved.

The unrest then spread to IKCO’s plant in Khorasan province where workers there also demanded fair wages equal to what the company pays their counterparts undertaking the same roles elsewhere in Iran, including in the capital Tehran. 

This led to a rally of over 4,000 workers at the plant on the morning of Wednesday November 10 demanding their grievances be heard and demands met.

The plant’s HR head official attended the rally and attempted to justify the IKCO bosses’ mismanagement and unsatisfactory response to the workers’ concerns. He attempted to brush the workers off by referring to the parlous state of the country’s economy and made several empty assurances in the hope of persuading them to return to the production line. 

However, the workers, unconvinced, told the official to go back to the CEO’s office and convey their demands for a rise in wages and ancillary benefits in parity with those undertaking like-work elsewhere across IKCO’s plants. Also a demand was made to end compulsory overtime. 

According to the reports, both the morning and afternoon shift workers remained on strike — effectively crippling production at the plant.

As one of the workers at IKCO Khorasan explained to an ILNA correspondent: “For several years now, we, the contract and fixed-term workers at the plant — around 4,000 people — have asked the company officials to eliminate discrimination and improve the terms and conditions of employment they offer us …  however, unfortunately, owing to the poor state of the economy there has been no change in this respect or in terms of the contracts or income they offered, despite a several-fold increase in terms of production at the plant and the revenue we have generated [for IKCO] through our labour. As a result, we workers were forced to stage this protest.”

The striking workers at IKCO Khorasan have promised to continue their action until they receive redress on the core issues of generally low wages and rates of pay and the failure to implement a proper job specifications with pay, conditions, and ancillary benefits.

Strikers told ILNA reporters:  “We, the workers of IKCO Khorasan, want our demands to be met. Our wages and benefits are different compared to other workers employed elsewhere at IKCO, but the company’s managers and the board of directors do not pay the slightest attention to our demands.”

Another striker quoted by ILNA articulated the workers’ desire for the implementation of direct and permanent contracts with IKCO and cutting out labour-broker intermediaries who are a problematic feature across Iran’s labour market. 

“The salaries we receive from an intermediary company do not provide us with a living,” a worker said, adding “another major factor in our problems is the lack of a real body to carry and represent the interests of the workers in our sector.”

Unfortunately, this is a reality of the Iranian workplace, regardless of sector, where independent trade unions are strictly prohibited, and attempts to form one or engage in such activity carry the risk of severe reprisals by the Islamic Republic authorities who established government-backed and employers-controlled Islamic Labour Councils and Khaneh Kargar (Workers’ House).

The developments witnessed over the last week are significant given that worker militancy in the automobile industry in Iran is relatively unheard of.

This strike and the effective disruption it has brought about for Iran’s largest automobile manufacturer also takes place against the backdrop of continuing and growing industrial arrest across Iran including the country’s oilfield workers, teachers, miners, dam workers and other critical infrastructure workforces. 

Despite the hardships and the very real threat of repression by the security forces these workers bravely continue in their struggles and the strength and momentum of these movements increases with every passing day.

Codir has called on activists in Iran’s labour and progressive movements to support the striking workers at IKCO, and on their counterparts internationally to demonstrate their solidarity so that these workers — and the authorities in Iran — know that they do not stand alone.

Codir also supports and campaigns for the full and immediate implementation of all relevant ILO conventions regarding labour rights — including conventions 87 and 98, regarding freedom of association and protection of the right to organise as well as collective bargaining, which the Islamic Republic of Iran is a signatory country.

Jamshid Ahmadi is assistant general secretary of Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights – Codir.  For more information on Codir and views and news on developments in Iran please visit: www.codir.net