Rouhani’s record on workers’ rights in Iran

Millions of Iranian workers are continuing to suffer from poverty out of unemployment, inadequate pay or non-receipt of their wages. Their situation has worsened since Hassan Rouhani took office as the regime’s President in 2013.

The following is a breakdown of just some of the problems faced by Iranian workers:

1. The Global Wage Report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) indicates that Iranian workers’ wage ranks 138 out of 148 countries. Some 65 percent of Iranian workers cannot afford to buy food for their families on a daily basis with their current wages.

2. Unlike the labor standards and policies set by the ILO, over the past 37 years the minimum wage for labor in Iran has not been set in proportionality with the true inflation rate. The minimum wage for an Iranian worker in the current year is 8,120,000 Rials (U.S. $270) a month whereas the official poverty line announced by Iran’s Central Bank is 35,000,000 Rials (1160 dollars). Yet, there are many workers who have not received even these very low wages for several months.

3. Workers enjoy no job security in Iran and can easily be made redundant. Between March 20 and April 20, 2016, more than 5000 workers were dismissed from various work units in Iran’s northern, central and southern provinces without being paid for their work.

4. Trade unions are not officially recognized in Iran, and at present many active unionists are in jails on long term sentences simply due to their union activities and forming independent trade unions. Iranian authorities do not even acknowledge workers’ rights for May Day gatherings.

5. Iran’s most important financial and production fields and units are owned and monopolized by the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and the institutions affiliated with the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, while Iranian workers and their families who form 40 million of Iran’s 80 million population have a less than 10% share of the profit.

6. Women workers are in a yet worse situation. Some female workers are paid one third of the wage paid to male workers for similar work, and at present 82% of women who are the main breadwinner in a family are unemployed.

7. The rate of suicide has risen amongst Iranian workers due to severe poverty. Between March 2015 and March 2016 there have been more than 5800 protests by workers across the country, but they have been suppressed by the regime.