From Iraq to Aotearoa, support the workers' resistance!

This is the text of a leaflet which the CWG will be distributing at the anti-war rally and Big Pay Out march tomorrow.

FROM IRAQ TO AOTEAROA, SUPPORT THE WORKERS' RESISTANCE!

Today the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq coincides with the Big Pay Out march designed to publicise the calls of low-paid Kiwi workers for a better deal. Even though they are separated by thousands of miles and take place in very different societies, the struggle of the Iraqi people against occupation and the struggle of Kiwi workers against exploitation have a lot in common. Most importantly, both struggles are aimed at a common enemy – the force that Marxists call imperialism.

A COMMON ENEMY

Rooted in the United States and other wealthy northern hemisphere countries, imperialism is like a monster with tentacles that stretch out over the globe, sucking the resources and labour power out of poorer societies and turning them into super profits for a few multinational companies. In Iraq, U.S. and British troops are keeping watch while these multinational companies suck billions out of country.

Firms like Halliburton, which used to be run by US vice-President Dick Cheney, are being awarded multi-billion dollar building and service contracts paid for by Iraqi oil, yet necessities like power and running water remain unavailable to most Iraqis. For the minority of Iraqis who can get jobs, wages are even lower now than they were under Saddam – in December last year journalist Pamela Hess revealed that Iraqis employed by the Halliburton subsidiary KBR were being paid less than fifty cents an hour to serve meals to US troops and civilian contractors.

In Aotearoa, multinational and local companies also reap huge profits. In the year March 2004 to March 2005, for instance, major companies operating in this country had an average profit increase of 25%. Some achieved much higher increases – Fletcher Building, for instance, recorded a 45% boost in profits, and Sky TV grabbed an incredible 300% increase. Yet these companies refuse to pass any of their profits onto their workers - all the money gets sucked out of New Zealand by the imperialists.

Many of the companies exploiting Kiwi workers have close links with the companies exploiting Iraq. Last year, on the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, protesters occupied the Queen St branch of the ANZ bank to highlight its many activities in Iraq. In the United States, anti-war protesters have targeted the offices of McDonalds and KFC, pointing out that these companies are reaping big profits by getting contracts to feed US troops and civilians in Iraq.

WORKERS FIGHT BACK

But, whether they live in Iraq or in Aotearoa, workers aren’t taking their exploitation by imperialism lying down. The Big Pay Out march is part of the campaign to build Unite as a union for unemployed and low-income workers. Unite has achieved success around the country in bringing workers into the union movement so that they can fight together for better wages and conditions, despite intimidation by multinationals like McDonalds, Starbucks and KFC.

Iraqi workers have also been organising against imperialism, even though the difficulties and dangers they face are far greater than the ones we face in Aotearoa. Shortly after capturing Baghdad, the US announced that it would be retaining Saddam Hussein’s 1987 Labour Law, which outlawed trade unions and strikes, and threatened those who broke its provisions with long jail sentences. But Iraq has a long history of trade unionism and anti-imperialism, and workers continued to organise themselves.

IMPERIALISM VERSUS TRADE UNIONISM

The US and its allies in Iraq’s puppet government soon became alarmed by the growing strength of the union movement and its opposition to the occupation. In the first half of 2005, a strike wave swept across the south of Iraq, spreading from textile workers in the city of Kut to oil workers in Basra. In April last year, Iraqi unionists held a conference in Basra at which they condemned US policies in Iraq and opposed the privatisation of the economy and the presence of multinational companies.

In June, leaders of the three largest Iraqi trade union groupings toured the United States to tell workers and anti-war activists about their opposition to the occupation of their country. At the end of the tour, the Iraqis signed a joint statement blaming the US for the war in Iraq and demanding that it withdraw. The trade unions were also strongly critical of the constitution drawn by US allies last year: Houzan Mahmoud, a leader of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unemployed of Iraq, called it a document ‘based on enslaving women, religious sectarianism, and tribalism’ and a product of ‘an atmosphere of occupation and terror’.

The US and its puppet Iraqi government could not tolerate the growing strength of the trade unions and their opposition to the occupation. In August, the Iraqi government issued Decree 8750, a law which confiscated the funds of Iraqi trade unions and a range of progressive non-governmental organisations.

Across Iraq, detentions and assassinations of trade unionists have been on the increase. In Kurdistan, for instance, pro-US militia arrested Rebwar Aref, a well-known trade unionist and leading member of the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, as he was leading a protest march against government corruption. Aref remains in custody.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, activists from the Unemployed Union of Iraq organised a march on the first day of this year against poor living conditions and fuel price rises. US troops opened fire on the march, killing four people and wounding dozens more. In a statement, the occupiers blamed the ‘provocative’ behaviour of the demonstrators for this atrocity. For US imperialism, though, all trade unionism is ‘provocative’, because it threatens the flow of superprofits. Despite all the repression, though, the Iraqi trade union movement continues to grow, and to organise new strikes and demonstrations.

ARMED STRUGGLE

But Iraq’s trade unionists recognise that they need more than pickets to protect themselves from the brutality of imperialism. Many own arms, and some have been forming self-defence militia, while others participate in attacks on US and British occupation forces and collaborators. In several suburbs of Baghdad, the Worker-Communist Party has used its ties to the local working class to establish workers’ militia that defend neighbourhoods against the intrusions of US troops, Islamist militia, and criminal gangs. The Worker-Communists want to spread workers’ militia through the whole of Iraq, and create an ‘Iraqi Red Army’ that can protect workers from both the US and from Islamist militia.

Many workers have joined in the war against the occupiers of Iraq. Some of them belong to an armed group called the Iraqi Communist Party Central Command, while others are part of broader nationalist groups like the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance. Because of the skill and bravery of their resistance, much of Iraq is out of US control, and even some of George Bush’s senior generals are beginning to concede that they are losing the war. The success of the resistance in Iraq has given a huge boost to other anti-imperialist movements around the world. They are showing that even the mightiest military power in the world cannot defeat an organised working class.

All Kiwi workers should support the workers’ resistance to imperialism in Iraq. A defeat for US imperialism in Iraq will be a victory for us, because imperialism is our enemy too.

Visit the website of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unemployed of Iraq at: http://www.uuiraq.org/
Visit the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq at: http://www.wpiraq.net/english/

Related

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/5050/

http://www.uuiraq.org/