VZCZCXRO7907
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK RUEHMOS
DE RUEHGB #0282/01 0311913
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 311913Z JAN 06
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2411
INFO RUCNIRA/IRAN COLLECTIVE
RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 0127
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 000282 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/26/2016 
TAGS: ELAB PHUM ECON PGOV IZ IR
SUBJECT: PRIORITIES AND CONCERNS OF IRAQI TRADE UNION 
LEADERS 
 
 
Classified By: Labor Attache OHara reasons 1.4 b/d 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  At a rare meeting with key Iraqi labor union 
leaders in Amman, we challenged them to contribute to 
economic reform in Iraq, fight corruption, and focus on 
productive job creation. Despite their diverse backgrounds, 
the Iraqis agreed their deteriorating legal standing under 
the current interim government was their highest concern. 
They said that their bank assets have been frozen and that 
they were losing their properties.  A high ranking official 
in the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MOLSA) said that 
he believed that National Assembly passage this year of a 
pending new Labor Code (approved by the Council of Ministers 
last December) would help resolve many of the legal 
difficulties faced by the unions. End Summary 
 
¶2. (SBU) Embassy Baghdad Labor Attache and Arab-speaking 
Embassy Labor Assistant met for over two hours January 15 in 
Amman with Iraqi trade union leaders. Represented were the 
Basra-based Independent Petroleum Workers Union, the 
Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq 
(Communist-Trotskyite), Kurdistan General Workers Syndicate 
Union and Iraqi Kurdistan Workers Syndicate Union and the 
General Federation of Iraqi Workers (the largest and most 
powerful union federation in Iraq).  Also attending were 
representatives from Solidarity House, the International 
Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the ILO. The 
meeting was facilitated by the Solidarity House Amman office 
that had already brought the Iraqis to Amman for a two-day 
leadership development workshop. 
 
------------- 
Our Challenge 
------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) After some predictable initial venting against the 
US presence in Iraq, the discussion turned to what weighed 
most on the labor leaders, minds, namely their uncertain 
legal status under the current government. Overall discussion 
was animated. On our side, we spoke out for an integrated 
approach to economic reform based on anti-corruption, 
privatization, subsidy cuts and attracting investment both 
foreign and Iraqi.  Without improvements in these areas, we 
argued that job creation remained difficult.  We suggested 
that the union leaders risked marginalizing themselves if 
they tried to deny that economic reform in Iraq is urgently 
needed. Union leaders expressed enthusiasm for the discussion 
and asked for additional conversations. 
 
-------------- 
Union concerns 
-------------- 
 
¶4. (SBU) We were surprised to be told that the number one 
labor union concern in Iraq today was neither poverty nor 
unemployment, but rather their allegedly deteriorating legal 
status under successive governments since March 2003.  Union 
leaders told us that they had hoped the CPA would have 
eliminated the ban on public sector unionization by Saddam 
Hussein and were disappointed when nothing changed.  Union 
leaders complained that CPA had tried to pick and choose a 
favorite union ) this was a mistake.  Furthermore, one labor 
leader said that he believed that the CPA had tried to keep 
the ILO out of Iraq and to prevent the ILO from trying to 
reform Saddam,s labor laws.  Union leaders were unanimous in 
condemning the labor policies of the current government. They 
alleged that government seizure of union buildings and 
freezing union bank accounts was a serious threat to the 
trade union movement's ability to collect dues or organize 
workers. The unions said that these measures are affecting 
both public and private sector unions. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Less a threat and more a disturbing trend, they 
said, is that the leading political parties in Iraqi have 
been threatening the current independence of the labor 
movement by creating special labor wings to the parties.  In 
the South, religious parties are creating religions trade 
unions that have begun threatening already existing 
independent unions. Other union leaders noted that high 
unemployment made it easy for managers to find replacement 
workers. They alleged that this affected their right to 
strike.  Union leaders also complained that since March 2003, 
their occupational safety concerns had increased ) not only 
from what they alleged is the deteriorating security 
situation but the &large amount8 of radioactive waste left 
behind by the US military.  Also discussed and debated were 
privatization, the role of women in the work force, how to 
solve unemployment, the limits of centrally planned job 
creation, the importance of effective laws, the legal status 
 
BAGHDAD 00000282  002 OF 003 
 
 
of the labor unions, the importance of petroleum for Iraq, 
the negative impact of corruption on workers, and the need to 
combat increasing child labor. 
 
----------------------- 
Why Amman vice Baghdad? 
----------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) Previous Embassy contact with the labor movement has 
been limited to meetings at the Ministry of Labor and Social 
Affairs Headquarters building in Baghdad (also in the red 
zone but relatively safe).  Meeting Iraqi union leaders in 
Baghdad is complicated. First, Iraqi union leaders have been 
reluctant for security reasons to enter the green zone for 
meetings here (Bombings at checkpoints to enter the IZ do 
occur.) Other union leaders are overtly anti-American and do 
not want to be seen as associating with the USG.  Another 
problem, as one Communist Party member labor union leader 
told us, is that government of Iraq has begun seizing union 
buildings and that many unions do not have a place to meet 
us.  In light of all this, we recently asked Solidarity House 
reps if they could facilitate a meeting for us with the Iraqi 
labor movement leaders the next time they had them in Amman 
and they agreed. 
 
------------------------------------------ 
International Cooperation with Iraqi labor 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶7. (SBU) Working with the ILO and the ICFTU, the Solidarity 
Center has spent nearly two years bringing Iraqi labor 
leaders to Amman for training.  The ICFTU and Solidarity 
Center have consciously decided to work with all trade union 
leaders and avoid favoring one union over another.  ICFTU and 
Solidarity House reps, as well as Iraqi union leaders, 
criticized  a CPA decision to &select8 the now defunct 
Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions IFTU) as the &one8 
officially accepted union.  One Iraq union leader told us 
that the brutal murder of the IFTU international affairs 
coordinator in early 2005 might have been caused by his high 
profile identification with Westerners.  The union leaders 
who work with the ICFTU, the ILO and Solidarity House come 
from the north, center and south of the country, as well as 
the secular and ethnic communities, the communist party and 
other leftist organizations. Solidarity House does seek to 
encourage these diverse leaders to speak with one voice to 
influence current economic and political debates in Iraq.  In 
fact, during the ICFTU and the Solidarity House sponsored 
meetings in Amman, the Iraqis found something to agree upon: 
opposition to the IMF and privatization (English language 
summary of statement blogged at www.jubileeiraq.org). 
 
---------------------------------------- 
Ministry of Labor: new labor code needed 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Upon our return to Baghdad, we raised the legal 
standing of the labor movement in Iraq with high ranking 
MOLSA official.  He acknowledge that this is a problem but 
said that a solution is in the works, namely a new labor code 
that "would bring Iraqi labor law into the 21st century." He 
said that passage of this labor law reform is a high priority 
of the current Minister of Labor and that after months of 
slow going, the Council of Ministers finally had approved it. 
 (He demurred when asked if we could see a copy.)  The next 
step will be to get National Assembly approval.  Both the 
ICFTU and Solidarity House have urged that this new labor 
code be approved soonest.  They believe that this new law 
could provide the basis, as one rep told us, &the only free 
and independent trade union movement in Arab Mid-East region. 
 
------------------------------------------- 
Unions: less independent and less national? 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Comment:  The Iraqi labor movement has been 
intensely political with strong ties to political parties. 
Unions have also sought to be organized nationally across 
sectarian or regional lines.  Even under Saddam, many union 
leaders were Communists while others made their peace with 
the ruling Baathist party.  Today many Union leaders still 
maintain strong ideological and political party ties.  In the 
case of the southern-based unions, there is a new element in 
the mix, namely growing relations with Iranians.  One of the 
goals of Solidarity House is to foment independent trade 
unions that focus on bread and better issues and are 
independent of external ties whether it be to Iran, Turkey, 
or Syria.  This will be a difficult task, as even among the 
few labor leaders we met, we saw a hints of a growing focus 
 
BAGHDAD 00000282  003 OF 003 
 
 
on regional issues and a greater receptivity to closer 
external relations with their neighbors. 
KHALILZAD