Iraqi Government Orders Arrest of Oil Workers' Leaders

[slipslidingaway]

http://www.handsoffiraqioil.org/2007/06/iraqi-government-orders-arrest-of-oil.html

"Iraq’s powerful oil workers’ trade union today expressed alarm as an
arrest warrant was issued for its leaders, in an attempt to clamp down
on industrial action.

Members of the union have been on strike since Monday 4th June, in
protest at the government’s failure to meet any of its promises made in a
meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on 16th May. The union’s 16 demands
included improvements to wages, health and other working and living
conditions as well as consultation on the proposed oil law, which the
union opposes. The union added a 17th demand yesterday demanding the
sacking of the General Manager of the Southern Pipeline Company.

On Tuesday, al-Maliki warned that he would meet threats to oil
production with an iron fist”.

The arrest warrant, based on a charge of “sabotaging the economy”
specifically names Hassan Juma’a Awad, the leader of the 26,000-strong
Federation of Oil Unions, and three other leaders of the Federation."

[leftchick]

1. wow that is some democracy there

iron fist eh? Saddam words.

[slipslidingaway]

8. Why are almost all Dems' s supporting the draft law by

including it as a benchmark.

:grr:

[leftchick]

11. "corporate profits"

it isn't just repukes getting contractor and oil money. Kucinich has opposed it though. :)

[slipslidingaway]

12. I tried getting an answer from several offices but they had

nothing to say on the issue.

[leftchick]

13. there is a very embarrassing video of Feinstein ducking the oil question

somewhere in the video forum. It is worth the watch to see our corporate whores duck and cover.

[slipslidingaway]

15. Thanks, Feinstein was not the only one. Reid did as well at the

National Press Club in January, cspan had/has the video and there was a thread here at the time that I cannot locate. Thanks for the interest.

There is a link to other videos at the bottom of this one.

http://www.husseini.org/content/2007/01/sen_reid_dodges.html

"This exchange took place at a news conference with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid on Jan. 19 at the National Press Club.

Husseini: Hi. Sam Husseini from IPA Media. I have a question for each of our guests, if I could. First to Senator Reid: an article appeared in The Guardian -- "Iraqis will never appear -- will never accept this sellout to the oil corporations," in The Guardian last week by Kamil Mahdi, who's an Iraqi academic in the U.K. It paints a picture of the administration in the midst of all of the carnage pushing through a new oil law "The U.S. and the IMF and their allies are using fear to pursue their agenda of privatizing and selling off Iraqis resources" with pending Iraq oil law. Are you looking into this? You've spoken about the oil companies and so on, are you looking into this oil law that the administration is apparently trying to ram through.

Reid: Is that a morning or afternoon newspaper? No, I'm sorry I haven't read that article. Um, but that's what Speaker Pelosi and I are talking about we have to lessen our dependence on foreign oil whether it comes from private sources, or in some instances where the oil is owned by the government. We have to--we use 21 million barrels of oil a day in America, 21 million barrels a day and more than 60 percent of that comes from foreign sources. And the United States controls less than 3 percent of the oil reserves in the world, we can't produce our way out of the problems we have with oil. The only alternative we have is to look to alternative fuels: the sun, the wind, geothermal, biomass. We have to do that and that's why it doesn't matter what they do in Iraq as far as our consumption of oil. We, we, we are oil hogs here in America and we've got to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and that can only be done by recognizing that we can't produce our way out of our problems and we have to move towards alternative energy sources.'

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Wasn't Cheney over there recently?

It sounds like his in-service training and seminars for governing are getting implemented! :sarcasm:

[KansDem]

3. I posted this concern a couple of days ago...

How much you wanna bet Bush installs a dictator far more tyrannical than Saddam?

Face it, Bush is in way over his head. Iraq is in violent turmoil with several factions fighting each other. Saddam kept a lid on this and did so with an iron fist. I wonder if Bush will have to find a more evil despotic leader to put the lid on this civil war. That's the way the USA operates.

That would be Bush's swan-song: start a war based on lies to "replace" a murderous potentate, only to install a second murderous potentate even worse than the first, all in order to control the oil.

And how many lives will this cost?

Army Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks: Only 1/4 of Baghdad is currently under control...

So now Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (aka Bush's Puppet) is all set to crack down on the oil workers union to assure that the economy remains "sabotage-free."

[slipslidingaway]

6. Thanks, missed it. AMY GOODMAN: First, talk about this strike

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/1415237

"The careful process is very simply: write a law, get a new Iraqi government in place, have the Iraqis pass the law, and then turn the oil over to US oil corporations.

The Bush administration designed the law. Last January, President Bush announced that it was a benchmark for passage by the Iraqi government. It was the same day that he announced the surge. And in the language of the administration, the surge was meant to provide the political space so that the Iraqis could discuss the oil law and other benchmarks. The Democrats then adopted this language of the benchmarks and said in the supplemental war spending bill, again, that the Iraqis have to pass this benchmark. And it very simply turns Iraq from a nationalized oil system, essentially closed to US oil corporations, to a privatized system in which potentially two-thirds of all of Iraq’s oil could be owned by foreign oil companies, and they can control the production with as long as thirty-year contracts."

[KansDem]

9. Does anyone know how the Iraqi oil union faired under Saddam?

I don't recall Saddam threatening any unions during his reign.

This "threatening unions" seems so Hitler-esque.

[slipslidingaway]

10. Unions did not fare well under Saddam

http://www.progressive.org/?q=mag_bacon1005

"“At first, there were only 100 of us, but workers began coming out,” Arbat recalls. “Some took their shirts off and told the troops, ‘Shoot us.’ Others lay down on the ground.” Ten of them even went under the tankers, brandishing cigarette lighters. They announced that if the soldiers fired, they would set the tankers alight.” This was not a threat of terrorism; they did not intend to kill innocent people. But they were willing to give their lives in defense of their jobs and their national resource.

By the end of the day, the Iraqi oil ministry paid the workers. Within a week, everyone at the refinery had joined, and the oil union in Basra had been reborn.

That oil union is one of Iraq’s oldest institutions. Originally organized under the British in the early 1920s, it has always been the heart of the country’s labor movement. “Iraq’s two biggest strikes, in 1946 and 1952, were organized by oil workers,” says Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the newly reorganized General Union of Oil Employees. After Saddam seized power, he persecuted unionists and banned independent organizing in the public sector, which includes the oil industry.

But today, the oil union is once again Iraq’s largest, most powerful labor organization, with 23,000 members in southern Iraq. Together with two other labor federations and a handful of independent professional associations, the labor movement is now the biggest secular institution in Iraqi civil society—and the one most opposed to Bush’s privatization schemes."

[slipslidingaway]

4. Iraqi unions fight to keep oil out of corporate hands

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23371

The Bush administration calls the Iraq occupation an exercise in democracy building. Yet from the beginning, many of the Iraqis who want democracy most are treated as its enemies - Iraq's unions. Iraq has a long labor history. Union activists, banned and jailed under the British and its puppet monarchy, organized a labor movement that was the admiration of the Arab world when Iraq became independent after 1958. Saddam Hussein later drove its leaders underground, killing and jailing the ones he could catch.

When Saddam fell, Iraqi unionists came out of prison, up from underground and back from exile, determined to rebuild their labor movement. Miraculously, in the midst of war and bombings, they did. The oil workers union in the south is now one of the largest organizations in Iraq, with thousands of members on the rigs, pipelines and refineries. The electrical workers union is the first national labor organization headed by a woman, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein.

Together with other unions in railroads, hotels, ports, schools and factories, they've gone on strike, held elections, won wage increases, and made democracy a living reality. Yet the Bush administration, and the Baghdad government it controls, has outlawed collective bargaining, impounded union funds and turned its back (or worse) on a wave of assassinations of Iraqi union leaders...

Hassan Juma'a Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, wrote a letter to the U.S. Congress on May 13. "Everyone knows the oil law doesn't serve the Iraqi people," he said. The union was banned from the secret negotiations. According to Juma'a, the result "serves Bush, his supporters and foreign companies at the expense of the Iraqi people." The union has threatened to strike if the law is implemented."

[harlinchi]

5. Is that the Oil Union which opposes the proposed Oil Law?

Congressman Kucinich to Receive Statement By Oil Workers Union on U.S. Government's Role in Privatizing Iraqi Oil
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23304

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a staunch opponent of the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Act, will receive a statement by the Oil Workers Union to BearingPoint tomorrow afternoon. BearingPoint is a consulting firm that received a U.S. government contract to assist the Iraqi government in drafting its oil law, which would privatize control of Iraqi oil.

Two top leaders in Iraq's labor movement, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, President of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, will begin a 12-city U.S. tour, which concludes in Atlanta on June 29. They will describe the likely consequences if the occupation continues, what might occur if it ends and prospects for a stable, democratic, non-sectarian future for Iraq.

Kucinich, along with leaders in Iraq's labor group, will discuss the extensive deception about the content of the hydrocarbon law, a deception which has taken in members of Congress and the media. Misdescribed tactically as a revenue sharing plan, it is in fact a radical plan to privatize Iraq's oil. The law before the Iraq Parliament contains 3 vague lines about revenue sharing and 33 solid pages of a complex legal restructuring, facilitating the privatization of Iraq's oil resources.

Boy! That didn't take long, did it? On 6-5-07, the oil union leaders announce their intent to give Kucinich a statement regarding their opposition to the proposed Oil Law. On 6-6-07, warrants are issued for their arrest. These dots are too close together for them to remain unconnected!

[slipslidingaway]

7. Yes, more info below. Kucinich is one of the few speaking

about this issue.

Voices of Iraqi Workers Solidarity Tour

http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/index.php



http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/1415237

"ANTONIA JUHASZ: Well, the strike is critical. It’s been a long time building. There had been some negotiations between the strike leaders and Prime Minister al-Maliki. There are a number of demands, basic working conditions, wages, as you say, but also a seat at the table and opposition to the attempt to turn over Iraq's oil to foreign oil corporations and the -- as more knowledge has been brought to Iraq, it’s been very difficult for Iraqis to even learn what this oil law was about, just like it’s been difficult here. As more information has spread, the opposition has spread, as well, and now the workers have taken the situation into their own hands and struck.

AMY GOODMAN: And what is this US-backed proposal?

ANTONIA JUHASZ: It’s a Bush administration, US corporate, very simple attempt to figure out: if you’re going to wage a war for oil, how do you get the oil. Does Exxon come in on a tank with a flag and stick it in the ground, or do you have a more careful process? The careful process is very simply: write a law, get a new Iraqi government in place, have the Iraqis pass the law, and then turn the oil over to US oil corporations."

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

14. A corporate-backed US-puppet goobernet.

Lots of bloodshed, ahead, for both the Iraqi people and the US people.

I hate this,...I really do.

damnit

[slipslidingaway]

16. "...Iraqi military surrounding striking Basra oil pipeline workers,

the 20-million-member ICEM today called on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to conclude peaceful negotiations with the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) in order to resolve their legitimate trade union demands.

In a letter to the Prime Minister from ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda, the global union federation of oil, gas, and energy unions throughout the world, stated, “On Tuesday evening, we learnt from the union that the Iraqi army had surrounded the strikers yesterday (5 June). The situation was, we understand, extremely tense. Urgent negotiations with your representatives have led to a temporary return to work to allow further negotiations, but the army remains in position and the situation remains very tense.”

...The ICEM is calling on all its 384 affiliated trade unions in 124 countries to send messages of support to IFOU. The ICEM is coordinating efforts to assist the IFOU together with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the US Solidarity Center, and the UK’s Trades Union Congress.

For background on this week’s strike, visit http://www.icem.org/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/ 2284-ICEM-Supports-IFOU-in-Today’s-Oil-Indus try-Strike-in-Basra."

http://www.icem.org/en/77-All-ICEM-News-Releases/2285-ICEM-Protests-Iraqi-Military’s-Involvement-in-Basra-Oil-Strike

[leftchick]

17. those poor people

killing them, stealing from them, torturing them. When is enough, ENOUGH?

:(

[slipslidingaway]

18. When we have control of their resources, directly or indirectly.

I only glanced at this article but believe this to be true.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0504.harwood.html

"Iraq's resurgent labor unions could have helped rebuild the country's civil society. The Bush administration of course tried to crush them...

Saleh's murder is more than just a sign of the frailty of Iraq's move towards democracy. It's also an apt example of how Iraq's labor movement has fared under U.S. control. Americans have largely left the Iraqi unions to fend for themselves, and in some cases actively undercut them. As a result, Iraq has been significantly deprived of the movement perhaps most willing and best equipped to nurture along a nascent national democracy in a religiously and ethnically divided country: organized labor.

Years from now, when historians try to figure out what precisely went wrong in the American occupation of Iraq and why, there will be many candidates: the failure to win enough international support; insufficient numbers of ground troops; the decision to ignore plans drawn up by experienced nation-building experts outside the Pentagon. But somewhere on the list will be the administration's indifference, indeed hostility, to Iraqi organized labor. The Iraqi people are paying a price for that attitude."

[slipslidingaway]

19. Oil strikers met by Iraqi troops

http://www.upi.com/Energy/Analysis/2007/06/06/analysis_oil_strikers_met_by_iraqi_troops/1799/

"On the third day of an oil strike in southern Iraq, the Iraqi military has surrounded oil workers and the prime minister has issued arrest warrants for the union leaders, sparking an outcry from supporters and international unions.

"This will not stop us because we are defending people's rights," said Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of IFOU. As of Wednesday morning, when United Press International spoke to Awad via mobile phone in Basra at the site of one of the strikes, no arrests had been made, "but regardless, the arrest warrant is still active." He said the "Iraqi Security Forces," who were present at the strike scenes, told him of the warrants and said they would be making any arrests...

Maliki has been unable to meet a key benchmark set by the Bush administration and backed by the Democratic-led Congress: to pass an oil law. Many in Iraq, including oil experts and parliamentarians, are calling for the law to be put on hold. Negotiators haven't been able to agree on the best means of revenue distribution, whether central or regional governments will have more power in the oil sector, or how much access foreign investors will have.

Manfred Warda, general secretary of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions, Wednesday sent a letter to Maliki condemning his tactics in addressing the strike. "Genuine and democratic trade unions are a cornerstone of democracy and at the same time are a force for reconciliation, peace and stability in a society," Warda wrote."

[Disturbed]

20. But the Iraq Invasion wasn't about oil.

It was about WMDs. The Big Lie!

[slipslidingaway]

22. Someone will have to inform the oil workers :) n/t

[tom_paine]

21. Loyal Bushies HATE unions. Hate them.

Wouldn't want any exercise of any actual freedom in Imperial Freedomstan (formerly Iraq).

[slipslidingaway]

23. The problem I see is now the Dems have 'voted' against the

Iraq unions by making the oil law a benchmark, it was in both supplemental bills.

[leftchick]

24. if you haven't heard it, Democray Now did a segment yesterday on this

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/06/1415237

Wednesday, June 6th, 2007
As the U.S. Discusses Staying in Iraq for 50+ Years, the Bush Administration and Congressional Democrats Push for Iraq to Open its Oil Fields to Foreign Oil Companies

[tabasco]

25. The only thing protecting the puppet government from lamp posts is the US military.

The quislings follow orders from the Bush corporate mafia and no one else.

They get paid well and want the occupation to continue indefinitely.