SOC Workers Win Their Fight for Higher Wages! Bremer's Orders Defied!

Ewa Jasiewicz, Occupation Watch, Occupied Basra 29/01/04

Southern Oil Company workers won their three month struggle, underpinnedby the threat of an armed strike, for higher and fairer wages thismonth.All oil sector workers in Iraq will now be receiving the SOC'snegotiatedwagetable. The unity, solidarity and support of oil sector workers inthecentral and northern fields in Kirkuk, Baaji and Baghdad's Daurra waskeyin achieving this victory. Plus the fact that the CPA/GC is heavilydependent on oil production and export from SOC, Iraq's biggest and mostlucrative oil company, following the inoperability of Iraq's northernfields due to continuous attacks on pipelines and stations. The onlyOilCompanies exporting crude oil from Iraq right now are SOC and Basra OilCompany.

In December, union representatives told Occupation Watch that they hadbeen telling workers since last month to save some of their wages in theevent of strike action. When SOC workers saw that their wages were beingdecreed by the Occupation Administration (OA) as signed by Paul BremerIII in Order 30 on Employment Conditions of State Employees and that thewages were lower than the emergency payments the OA had been paying postregime fall, they decided to form their own wage scale based on marketprices - including the price of fuel, gas, rent and foodstuffs, worklocation, and level of risk. The OA's wage table slashed all family,riskand location payments workers survived on under the regime. In everyworkplace OW visited, workers were frustrated with their low, late andfluctuating wages, as well as the axing of all their 'survival' paymentsand subsidies which sustained workers and their families.
The SOC union's wagetable demanded the minimum wage for an Iraqi oilworker be set at 155,000 ID ($100) per month - more than doubling theOccupation set 69,000 (currently worth $50-55) and a rise of 84,000 ID.SOC's table also cut out two whole levels and 20 positions of the CPA's130 position, 13 level wagetable. The Union persuaded their managementand General Director to support their demands for the homemade scalefollowing two days of meetings last month. The union reinforced theirdemands by declaring that workers would join the armed resistance iftheir demands were not met. This prompted the minister of oil to travelto Basra himself and begin negotiations with union reps immediately. The result was that the lowest minimum wage for the generators of Iraq'swealth, the heart pumping its' economic lifeblood, is now 102,000 ID permonth - a rise of 33,000 ID. The whole wagetable now starts at levelnine and all those meant to receive level nine wages will now be movedupto level eight, which starts at 120,000 ID ($85) and ends at 155,000 ID($110). The maximum level an unskilled worker can earn is 328,000 ID($250) per month - the end of level five. Five upwards deals withtechnicians and workers with diplomas. Level four refers to workers withover 30 years of experience and upwards is reserved for seniortechnicians and engineers and management.
But why the concession for the lowest paid? Why not push for the 155,000minimum? 102,000 is barely a life supporting wage. The lowest rent inBasra is 25,000 per month (most peoples is 50,000), that leaves justunder 20,000 per week (approx 3000 ID per day) to spend on food, schoolbooks, gas, fuel, car maintenance, clean water, cigarettes and any otherunexpected necessities. A full UN plastic 4-5 litre carrier of drinkingwater costs 250 ID. A small chicken costs 3,500 ID, 1 kg of apples ororanges (6) is 750, potatoes (6) is 500, a bag of bread (5 pieces) is250, tomatoes (6) is 500 (in Baghdad due to transportation costs up fromthe more fertile if DU radiated south, a kg is 2000 ID); a canister ofgas is approx 2000 ID. A pair of adult leather shoes is 20,000 ID, apairof socks 500 ID, cheapest family shampoo 750 ID. A family can just aboutsurvive eating basic simple, rations bulked food, but it is nearlyimpossible to save or find the money for a gift or journey or new itemofclothing. Life is hand to mouth for the vast majority of Iraqi peopleandthat's just for those lucky enough to have work - the estimated 70% or10million unemployed have even more of a struggle on their hands.
According to the occupation wagescale over a third (35%) of the Iraqipublic sector workforce is on 69,000 to 155,000. 10% - managerial andadministration levels receive 574,000 to 920,000. So why the compromise? Infact its not. Risk and location payments havealso been taken into account and a further 18-30% payment is included ontop of the tabled figures. This means that all the wages detailed on thetable are potentially 30% higher according to a worker's location, i.edessert, remote area, dangerous position. Whether North Rumeilla,contaminated by Depleted Uranium during both Gulf Wars is included as arisky location is yet to be seen but the danger presented to workersbreathing in the tons of radioactive nuclear waste used by invadingUS/UKtroops is immediate, severe and life-threatening.
Of the victory, Hassan Jum'a, Head of SOC Union said: 'This is somethingwe were sure of. Our sector is the most organized in Iraq and we wereelected by the workers themselves'. On the effect of the victory on the swelling struggle in the Electricitysector, Jum'a said, 'It's the oil section first, then the other sectorswill follow, soon, soon, it will change, the influence will be felt'.Samir Hanoon, Vice President of the Federation of Iraqi Trade Unionssaidhe was thrilled by the result and that it was 'all good' and was alreadyhaving a positive impact on the electricity unions' negotiations forhigher wages. 'Soon we'll be next. Our negotiations have been helped bythis and they are going well' he told OW. The rise for Iraqi workersmeans a cutback for the exploitative ambitions of the OccupationAdministration and a blow to the logic and regularly heard corporateboast of Iraq now possessing some of the cheapest labour in the middleeast. The regional Occupaiton Administration, CPA South, claimed ignorance ofthe wagetable, confusing SOC workers' new wagetable with the SeptemberCPA Ordered one now printed up in December into colour booklets forworkers to read and understand why its natural for them to be paid slavewages.
All in all, the courage of Iraqi oil workers in recognizing andaffirmingtheir power as the sector capable of commanding GC ministers to attendtotheir demands and breaking the perceived 'last word' authority of theOccupation Administration, shows that social resistance to theoccupationand its dictates is alive and on fire and ready to strike for justice inIraq. Noone is taking this as a final result, but as a first win in ajourney of many, making up for the decades of silencing, violence andmurder by the Baath dictatorship. And it's also the first move in asocial battle waged more than anything to raise the consciousness andconfidence of workers, so broken by the Baath, to realize that theythemselves are a weapon against the injustices and exploitation of theOccupation.
http://www.cpa-iraq.org/regulations/20030909_CPAORD30.pdf - OA Order 30on Reform of Salary and Employment Conditions of State Employees. The OAwage table is at the very end

Iraqi Oil Workers Throw Out KBR, Reconstruct Their Own WorkplacesAutonomously

Ewa Jasiewicz

Occupied Basra, 12/12/03
Southern Oil Company Trade Unionists have declared their workplaces ano-go zone for Halliburton, formerly headed by US Vice Presicent DickCheny's, subsidiary Kellog Brown and Root. KBR was give a no-bidcontractby USAID to reconstruct bomb-shattered oil refineries and installationsin Iraq. Included in the contratcs was authorisation to export andmarketIraqi Oil.

The SOC Union however, representing over 10,000 workers hasbanned all KBR represntatives and foreign workers from entering theirsites. SOC Union Head Hassan Jum'a says, ''Till this moment we haventneeded any foreigners to come in. We can do everything ourselves'.
Worker unrest errupted in Bergeseeya oil refinery and control section inOctober following the employment of Indian and Pakistani labourers byKuwaiti subcontractors Al Khorrafi Company. Workers staged a wildcattwo-day strike, physically threw out the foreign workers and demanded aportion of the 70% unemployed population of Iraq be employed instead.Theemployment of foreign labourers was halted immediately.
Occupation Watch visited SOC workers in the North Rumeilla crude oilpumping station, drilling and gas company and discovered that workershadbeen carrying out reconstruction work independently, using their ownworntools, canibalised spare parts from old equipment and parts purchasedform the local market. Ali Mohammad Jowad, an engineer working in thewater injection section of the station told OW, 'We havent seen any KBRemployee do any repair work whatsoever. They are not involved in anyreconstruction in any way. KBR came and checked our equipment andpromised to repair looted equipment but until this moment, nothing isrepaired'.
Workers started autonomously reconstructing in June with cleaning andrepairing what they could including water pumps and oil well safetygauges. 'During this preparing' recalls Ali Mohammad, 'We alsoconsidered that we need a place to rest and sleep so we built a placefor ourselves to stay in too'. According to workers, Reconstruction is40% of what it needs to be with regards to buildings and workers haverebuilt 50% of their equipment autonomously. 'KBR hasn't even seen ourwork, they've said Nothing about our repairs. All our work has been ourown' says Ali Mohammad. Many of the same workers who rebuilt NorthRumeilla following the devastation of the first gulf war 13 years agoalso paticipated in reconstruction again this war-round.
Hassan Jum'a, Head of the SOC Union, father of 6,and living in adecrepit, crumbling house in the 1999 missile-blasted neighbourhood ofJhoomouria where piles of garbage rot in the street, is well respectedthroughout Basra, not only for his hardline position on workers rightsand refusal of any 'foreign interference' including Occupationadminsitration orders and rulings, but also for bringing together bothcommunists and religious party members as location representatives intheUnion. Uncompromising, direct and posessing a totally unreadable face,hepresides over seven union councils in seven different locations.
He told OW that Bremer's June Public Notice (being implemented gleefullyby bosses throughout Iraq like an Order) has had no effect on them.Bremer's notice declares that the CPA 'respects Iraqi law' includinganti-worker Baath dictatorship law, chiefly 1987's order 151 whichturnedall Iraqi workers into civil servants - state employees, forbadeindependent trade unions and absorbed all workers into state-run Unionsfunctioning as organs of surveillence and repression. 'Nothing haschanged since Bremer's dictates' he states flatly.
The SOC union does however have full management backing. 'The GD meetsall out demands', says Jum'a, 'sometimes he signs our orders withoutevenlooking at them'. And indeed the Union has members within all levels ofthe company from buying committee members to reward and bonusescomittees, plus its own minibuses and building and has been holdingregular ceremonies marking the latest autnomous worker reconstructioneffort. The most recent was in Majnoon , two weeks ago which saw workersrebuild the damaged refinery independently, using KBR materials butrefusing any KBR personel involvement. KBR were furious at thebarring.
'At first they refused to supply us with the materials but in the sametime we were insisting in our demands - we insisted that Iraqi peoplemade the repairs', told us jum'a. ' Then they tried to negotiate 50%KBR,50% Iraqis, we said no, they then bargained for 5% foreign workers, then1% but we still refused. Drivers are the only foreigners allowedanywherenear'. 'Several times KBR engineers told us ' We are amused by the wayyou are working' and they were suprised at the fast results'.
Indeed, the mirage of the mystified 'West Knows Best' multibilliondollar reconstruction industry falls apart when undermined by the truthof ordinary Iraqi workers rebuilding their own country using theinventiveness, ingenuity and experimentality they learned throughout the13-years of collectively punishing UN-US-UK enforced sanctions andrefusing all moves to privatise their workplaces. However, despitetheseskills and talents borne under duresse, further training and newtechnologies - with no strings attached - are deeply desired by workersat all levels of industry, in order to explore, diversify and build uponskills already aqcuired and foster greater autonomy and non-reliance onforeign experts and corporations.