Workers protest in front of Industry Ministry

GVF -- This morning, workers from the Iranian Telecommunication Indutustry (ITI) arrived in Tehran and took their complaints to the Ministry of Industry and Mines building.

According to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA), today’s protest took place after the Ministry refused to meet the demands of the workers, which it had previously promised to do.

One of the workers told ILNA that “thirteen months of unpaid wages are problematic for us. Workers have come from Shiraz to Tehran on New Year’s Eve to materialise their demands which the government had promised to meet and they [the workers] will not go home empty-handed.”

Last week a group of 200 workers from the plant belonging to ITI arrived in Tehran to claim their rights from the illegitimate government which then promised them to pay the total of around two million dollars of their unpaid wages until Saturday.

However, as with other empty promises made by the Iranian government, it failed to comply with the workers’ basic demands. Four days after the due date set by the Ministry of Industry, the workers’ wages were still not paid.

The ITI plant which is located in the historic city of Shiraz has 700 workers and has not paid their wages for the past thirteen months due to a lack of funds.

ITI is only one among the many plants that has not been able to provide its workers with pay. Ahmadinejad’s disastrous economic policies have ensured a continuous worsening of the situation of workers since he took office in 2005, and once again through rigged elections in June 2009.