Police raided and shut down electricity unions across Iraq in mid-July, carrying out an order from the electricity minister that could have been lifted from Saddam Hussein’s rule book.
The order prohibits “all trade union activities at the ministry and its departments and sites” and authorises the police “to close all trade union offices and bases and to take control of unions' assets properties and documents, furniture and computers”.
The leader of Britain’s Trades Union Congress has called upon the Iraqi government “to withdraw the order, and allow unions to operate freely, underpinned by a fair, just and International Labour Organisation-compliant labour law”.
The Iraqi trade union movement is calling on trade union members around the world to raise their voices in protest.
[Protest messages can be sent to Labour Start.]