February 21, 2007 at 21:39:45

Iraq Labor vs. ExxonMobil, BP and Shell

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By Kathlyn Stone (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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The venerable War Resistors League expressed its solidarity with Iraq's unions in 2004 with this statement: "Union organizing efforts have begun in the Southern Oil Company and among employees in various Iraqi electrical facilities. Workers have won wage increases and better working conditions. We respectfully urge the expansion of nonviolence in the crucial context of labor organizing."

US Labor Against the War, a network of more than 140 unions, labor councils, state federations, and other labor organizations with millions of members, hosted six leaders of the Iraqi trade union movement on a 20-city U.S. solidarity tour in summer 2005. USLAW has established an Iraqi Labor Solidarity Fund to help the workers "defend themselves against the invasion of U.S. and other multinational corporations like Bechtel, Halliburton, and Stevedoring Services of America the same anti-union companies we face at home." USLAW states: "The U.S. and the government it created can not claim to be for democracy while attempting to strangle Iraq's labor movement." USLAW has asked labor and social justice activists across the United States to protest the interference with unions that are fighting to defend the interests of Iraq's society.

Remember the tale of David and Goliath? People from many nations are telling their leaders they will not stand by and let an entire country be sacrificed to corruption and aggression. We can hope and work for an outcome in Iraq that favors union workers who struggle valiantly, like David, and hope that they are successful in felling the Giant oil industry, huge in stature like Goliath, but blinded by greed. We know how the story ends.

Recommended reading:
A sampling of Iraq labor groups and those working in solidarity:

General Union of Oil Employees in Basra http://www.basraoilunion.org/
Iraq Freedom Congress - www.ifcongress.com
Oil Change International - http://www.priceofoil.org/
TUC Aid - http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/index.cfm?mins=376
US Labor Against the War - http://www.uslaboragainstwar.org/
War On Want - http://www.waronwant.org/
War Resistors League - http://www.warresisters.org/

Report:
"Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq's Oil Wealth,"
by Greg Muttitt, Platform with Global Policy Forum, Institute for Policy Studies (New Internationalism Project)
New Economics Foundation, Oil Change International, and War on Want

Unraveling the Carbon Web (A Platform project) http://www.platformlondon.org/carbonweb/

Photodocumentary:
Oil for Freedom,
photojournalist David Bacon

Video:
"Meeting Face-to-Face: The Iraq-U.S. Labor Solidarity Tour," Stony Brook University documentary

News articles:
"Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity," The Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece
"Iraq's other resistance," The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1498155,00.html
"Future of Iraq: The spoils of war," The Independent http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece

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Kathlyn Stone is a Minnesota-based writer covering science and medicine, health care and related policies.-She publishes www.fleshandstone.net, a health and science news site.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.