LONG LIVE THE STRIKE OF HAFT TAPPEH SUGARCANE WORKERS!

Today the 7000 Iranian workers of Haft Tappeh sugarcane complex have entered their 19th straight day of strike. Their demands are the payment of wage arrears, for the company to be 100% state-owned and not being re-privatized, besides installing back of their leaders and comrades that were dismissed in previous strikes, and freedom and acquittal of their lawyer Farzaneh Zilabi (convicted to a year in prison for defending the workers) and the renewal of the temporary contracts for the 1,500 temporary workers to get back to work.

The workers marched to the mayor’s office of Shush, in Khuzestan province, where the sugarcane complex is located. They also marched to the capital city of the province, Ahwaz. They held daily rallies where they denounce the emptying of the company, and the fact that while all kinds of dirty businesses and emptying has been done since its privatization in 2015, the situation of the workers have been worsening. The bosses and the Ayatollah have stolen millions and the workers’ wages are not being paid. The workers claim: “Enormous salaries for the governments officials and misery for the people!”, “Our wages are paid in trial but our expenses are paid in dollars”, “Enough with the tyranny!”, “Our tables are empty!” and “The retirement fund has been hijacked by the thieves”. They also denounced that the activist, journalist of workers struggles, Sepideh Gholiyan, who was on parole after suffering a 5 years conviction for her press releases and support to the struggle of Haft Tappeh workers since 2018, has been once again put in jail by the Ayatollah regime.

For a few years, the workers of Haft Tappeh have been fighting with strikes, demonstrations, etc. The last strike took place in July-August, at the same moment when an uprising for water took place in the same province where the factory is and where an oil strike paralysed the country. In this strike, they gained the displacement of the owner and CEO of the company, Omid Asadbeigi. An interim committee took office and is now evaluating the company’s situation to privatize it again. That committee also hasn’t paid even a trial to the Haft Tappeh workers. And it is still not clear how the company will remain, whether state-owned or re-privatized. 

Therefore the workers know that the struggle against the privatization is not over. They have conquered a first victory: the installing back of one of the dismissed comrades, Mohammed Khanifar. They won’t stop until all their comrades, like the leader Esmail Bakshi, return to his job. Long live the struggle of the Haft Tappeh workers! This strike must not be kept isolated. Their demands of a decent wage to face the sky-rocketing cost of living is the same one for which different sectors of the Iranian working class have been taking to the streets. It is necessary to coordinate the strike of Haft Tappeh with the protests of pensioners, teachers, miners and other sectors that are taking place in Iran. Wages equal to the family basket! Renationalize all the privatized companies in Iran without compensation and place them under workers control! Free all the political prisoners in the jails of the Ayatollah for being part of the workers struggles!