After 1979’s Islamic Revolution, private companies were put into the care of the State guardianship or more precisely of the mullahs’ guardianship who had then substituted for the State. The same mullahs we find again nowadays into the Assembly of Experts or into the Expediency Discernment Council of the Regime also shared among themselves public companies -oil national company, steel industry, mining, forest- via new State institutions of which they took over the management and that are still lead by them today. Thus Iranian production switched to some Mafia economy that is entirely dedicated to immediate profit. One of the immediate consequences of the abandonment of productivity cult for the one of immediate profit was to lower wages and to outstrip payments.

As time goes by, the new businessmen of the regime –mullahs and pasdaran- took the habit to not pay on time wages, a process that comes before lays-off or factory dismantling. This is very economic because the worker who expected for his unpaid wage for several months will accept to be hired again with any wage and under any working condition. So-called public companies that are managed by clans that derive from the clergy thus shaped a working class that accepts anything.

This process of delayed wage also enabled to oust the major part of employees who disposed of a contract -and thus benefiting from a social cover- in order to replace them with temporary workers -without social cover. Nowadays even this prevailing kind of precarious work -83% of employees- is the target of the attacks of the delayed payment followers because above one year of temporary employment, the company is obliged to offer a contract to the employee but the employee never reaches this fated deadline because the employer stops to pay him before he lays him off. This lay-off is generally programmed the day before Nowrooz. This is what happened to the 2,000 employees of ARPCO from Ahwaz, a company that manufactures pipeline tubes and that was founded in 1966 under the Shah, a company that is obviously destined for dismantling because it occupies a 900,000 m2 site.

One of the employee’s problems with this process is the lack of visibility. The companies that are managed by the mullahs apply this process regularly with every employee whether they have a contract or not to such an extent that they never know if it’s a temporary delay or a plan to lay-off temporary workers or even a situation of pre-dismantling. Every excess are allowed and the companies that are managed by the mullahs make no bones about taking advantage from the situation : some workers haven’t been paid for a year.

The most famous cases are :
The 5,000 workers of the sugar house Haft-Tapeh -15 to 18 months of wage delayed payment,
the Tyres Alborz -9 months of wage delayed payment,
the woodworks Kish Tchoub -4 to 6 months of wage delayed payment,
the weaving factories of Mazandaran region -2 months of wage delayed payment,
the Coal Denbo -3 months of wage delayed payment,
the mines of Gharaveh region -3 months of wage delayed payment,
Aazam, leather manufacturer -3 months of wage delayed payment and at last
every employee of Mazandaran medical school -1 month of wage delayed payment.
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As information goes by, whenever the regime dares to mention it, we also learn about collective lays-off such as the one of 2,000 temporary employees from ARPCO of Ahwaz.
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Here is a selection for the latest thirty days :
The woodworks Kish Tchoub -300 workers ;
an unknown company from the city of Ghazwin -120 workers ;
in the same city, Action co. -termination of business, 27 laid-off workers ;
still in Ghazwin, the porcelain Mina –termination of business, more than 1,000 laid-off workers ;
the Iranian branch of Wolkswagen laid-off every of its temporary workers ;
in Khorram-Abad, 40 workers from car industry were forced to retire ;
the Iranian company named METAL had to terminate its business because it was unable to pay its electricity invoice -481 laid-off workers ;
the Oils Ghoncheh closed -1,200 laid-off workers…

The latest one is the case of the weaving factories of Borudjerd city, victim of cheap Chinese products imports. The factories were since a month under termination of business because they were unable to clear their stock. Thus the factories decided to give their 1,200 workers holidays but we think they won’t go back to work because the regime gives privilege to import compared to national production.

Even though under the effect of an important inflation the production cost is getting higher, the regime just lowered at a rate of almost zero the customs rights of products that are into awkward situation such as textile. In parallel it also lowered the dollar’s conversion rate in order to reinforce the purchasing power of those who import cheap foreign goods. Those both measures threw the deathblow on Iranian production and employment and it went completely unnoticed by presidential candidates.

© WWW.IRAN-RESIST.ORG
The french version of this article :
 Iran - confidentiel : Licenciement en masse
 (17 MARS 2009)