from US-based exiles and with little popular support, will be preserved as a second even less democratic chamber alongside
early December.
National Assembly. It is generally
accepted that they would stand little
chance in any democratic elections,
(IFTU) since June. Muhsin adds. US occupation forces in Iraq escalated their efforts to paralyse Iraq's new labour unions with a series of arrests in
On December 6, a convoy of 10 Humvees and personnel carriers descended on the old headquarters building of the Transport and Communications Workers union, in Baghdad's central bus station, which has been used as the office of the Iraqi Workers Federation of Trade Unions
Twenty soldiers jumped out, stormed into the building, handcuffed eight members of the Federation's executive, and arrested them.
"They gave no reason at all, despite being asked over and over," says IFTU spokesperson Abdullah Muhsin.
Soldiers painted over the name of the federation on the front of the building CPA. with black paint, Muhsin says. The union had few resources, "but we did have a few files, and they took those,"
Although the eight were released the following day, there was no explanation or apology from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S. occupation government in Iraq
The bus station raid followed the detention of two other trade union leaders on November 23 - Qasim Hadi, general secretary of the Union of the Unemployed, and Adil Salih, another leader of the organization. Hadi had been arrested twice before by occupation troops, for leading demonstrations of unemployed workers demanding unemployment benefits and jobs.
Both the Union of the Unemployed and the IFTU have been organising Iraqi workers since last summer. But a 1987 law which forbids workers in state owned enterprises forming unions is still being enforced by the
Another order issued on June 6 threatens that anyone who "incites civil disorder" will be detained as a prisoner of war under the Geneva Convention.
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8 soclal ance January 2004