Jail and lash
Verdict for Razy Petrochemical Workers is a Brutal Violation of Labor-Union
Rights
Mahshar’s Razy Petrochemical
factory has 3000 workers and employees; where according to the Iranian Labor
News Agency’s (ILNA) report, 1850 of the workers are employed by contractors
(have temporary contracts). Even if they have almost similar qualifications
with the permanent employees, workers employed by contractors earn “several
times less than” the permanent employees. Petrochemical factory workers’
difficulties started in 2008; meaning at the time that “85 percent of the Razy
Petrochemical factory’s shares were handed to the private sector (a Turkish
company).” In protest against their unpaid wages and discriminatory pay scale
between themselves and the permanent employees, on January 8, 2014, about 1000
contracted workers of the Petrochemical factory started several protest
gatherings. Following workers representatives’ agreement “with the Executive
Board and the government and security authorities”, workers ended their protest
gatherings. Since the Managing Director did not follow through with his
promises by the agreed date, on February 7, 2004, about 1000 Razy Petrochemical
factory workers staged a protest gathering again. Following the manager’s
filling of “disrupting the order, insult and threat” charges against workers, 8
Razy Petrochemical workers were summoned to the Mahshar General Revolutionary Court ’s
prosecutor’s office. On September 15, 2014, branch 103 of Mahshar’s General
Court (penal), handed six months of jail sentence and 50 lashes to each of the four
Razy Petrochemical workers; “workers who in early 2014 negotiations with the
management, served as workers’ representatives.” The Iranian Committee for
Labor-Union Relations, considers the Islamic Republic judiciary’s cruel verdict
as a clear violation of labor-union rights and legal international treaties,
and strongly condemns it.
The Iranian Committee for Labor-Union
Relations
