03.03.2005

Militant and un-compromising

Falah Alwan is president of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq and a member of the Worker-communist Party. He spoke to Mark Fischer during a recent visit to London

What is the purpose of your visit? I came to London on the invitation of the TUC to attend their 'Solidarity with Iraq Trade Unions' conference on February 14, which was intended to bring together all Iraqi trade union organisations to discuss the problems we face and the practical measures of solidarity the British movement could take. All the Iraqi trade unions were invited. What was positive is that something practical came out of the day - a committee has been created to carry the work forward under the umbrella of the TUC. We have also had some individual meetings with both rank and file trade union activists and leaders of particular British unions. We have been particularly encouraged that some of these comrades very much empathised with our stand against the occupation - obviously something that is not universal in the Iraqi trade union movement - and against the sham elections. There was a real degree of political agreement, which was very encouraging. Despite our militant and uncompromising stance on these sorts of questions, we are confident we can rely on real support coming from the workers' movement in this country. The trip has been very useful in disseminating information about what is happening on the ground in the trade union movement in Iraq. I was aware before I came here of a certain amount of lack of knowledge about union bodies other than the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, the officially sanctioned body appointed and legitimised by the interim government. The IFTU has no monopoly on the trade union movement, however. Apart from us, there are many trade union bodies. What are the others? There is the so-called General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq. This is the Ba'athist organisation. This union has recently split - there is something called the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions that has behind it the Islamic Supreme Council, a component part of the new government. Also, the Arab nationalists and sunni tribalists have supported the GFTU. However, it is important to bear in mind that these forces do not have much real presence on the ground, in the workplaces. In some places, we come across them, but not everywhere. These types of union organisations are not organic in any real sense; they are being created from outside by forces the working class has little sympathy for and therefore have little or no social base. Also invited to this TUC meeting in London were the teachers' union and the Kurdish trade unions. In terms of Kurdistan, in both the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan-dominated areas, they do not have independent trade unions. The political parties dominate totally. Building up trade union organisation from the grassroots in today's Iraq is a very hard task, but we have made an important start. Part of what we are fighting against is a psychological hangover from the past: many workers still tend to see unions as corporate bodies, part of the oppressive state apparatus. This was true for the last few decades of the Saddam regime, of course. The other trade union organisations we encounter have a problem in this context. They are very much continuations of the past, of organisational (and political frameworks) that were established in a period when workers would tend to identify trade unions with their oppressors, not as independent fighting bodies of their own. This precludes the possibility of these unions organising from the grassroots up, with a new vision and a fighting perspective. This has been a difficult task for us, as workers will tend to lump all the unions together, despite their political and historical differences. Many, many workers still view trade unions simply as tools of the state apparatus - even now that state apparatus has radically changed, of course. However, we have made real progress on this difficult question, we think. We have illustrated how different we are by dint of the most basic ways we organise. Those union organisations tainted by having been part of the state apparatus approach the task of organising the workers from above, imposing organisation on them from outside. We have started with the workers themselves, their concerns and the structures - directly elected workers' committees in the factories, for example, that they themselves create to defend their most basic rights. Our first conference, held in Basra in November last year, was very successful. A whole range of topics was discussed - political questions as well as the economic concerns of the workers' daily life. Debates included the unification of the workers' movement, the democratic right to assembly and to establish union organisations, the occupation, the role of the working class in shaping the new political forms that are being born in Iraq (the constitution, elections, etc). The next step is the Baghdad conference, due soon (finances allowing!). On the agenda will be the question of legal rights, fighting for the space to create workers' organisations like trade unions and for those organisations to be able to operate freely in defence of the interests of the class (strikes, protests and so on). Also, a vital debate will be around our response to the privatisation process. Obviously, we will debate the occupation and the recent election - in which our federation urged a boycott. We do have a problem, given the current state of the consciousness of workers in Iraqi. Our society is shattered. The daily battle for physical survival - to keep your family fed, clothed and warm - is so strenuous, it leaves little energy for workers to think deeply about broader political questions. However, it is something that is vital for them to do if they are to adequately defend their own interests as workers. What are the prospects for a single trade union centre? Would you consider unity with the IFTU? When we speak about the unity of the workers' movement, we don't really mean uniting different labour organisations that are politically divergent. We cannot unite forces that are moving in totally different directions - it's like oil and water. No, for us we can work with others as long as their aims and their practices are not in contradiction with the interests of the working class. If any other organisation agrees with the broad approach that we have to organising the workers so as to shape the new political forms emerging in Iraq, to fight for progressive labour laws, etc, we will have no problems working with them on specific joint actions. But if we are dealing with the type of trade union that simply exists to deliver official orders from above in the factories, telling workers on strike that they are breaking the law, this is totally incompatible with the principles we defend and organise around. But has the IFTU not come into any forms of conflict with the interim government or occupying powers? I don't want to be too negative about the IFTU - they have the right to exist and fight for their point of view just as we have - but the reality is that they are simply a state-owned organisation. For instance, their role in the recent strike in a large chemical factory was simply to turn up to deliver orders, telling workers that the action was against the law, our members had no right to organise and our federation was illegal. They threatened our members with the sack and expulsion from the workplace. In effect, the IFTU was policing the factory on behalf of the bosses, the government and the occupying powers. Organisational unity with these forces is impossible. How have the elections affected the position of the working class? This election was a total sham. Its method was to divide society on the basis of ethnic background or religious sect. Workers were not recognised as part of the working class, but according to their religion or nationality. These are not social identities in a real sense in today's Iraq - they are artificial divisions that are being promoted from above. Naturally, the basic social division of class against class was not taken into account when the electoral constituencies were being constructed. These state-fostered divisions will create a terrible situation for the workers. It deepens and to a certain extent poisons the differences in our class. Also, the outcome of this election is reactionary. The victory of the shia alliance will mean the promotion of islamisation in Iraq - the effective denial of democratic rights for workers, women, ethnic minorities, etc. So it is very negative. Wouldn't it have been a good thing if political forces such as your own had not boycotted the election? After all, the Iraqi Communist Party will now have a small number of MPs. It will use the new parliament as a platform for its politics - wretched as they are. But the whole way the election was organised and its outcome has all been in the interests of the occupying powers and their Iraqi stooges. They have legitimised totally reactionary politics in our country. They wanted the fragmentation of the working people of Iraq along the lines of religion and ethnic background. Having one or two seats in this parliament for a secular voice would be meaningless. The whole edifice is one that is structured to serve the interests of America and its allies, both in Iraq and outside it. It is stage-managed 'democracy' - by its very nature, it cannot provide a platform for us. In some ways, the election was a side issue for us. Our central aim remains workers' rule in our country. But we currently face a particularly dire political situation. Therefore we see our task as spreading and deepening basic workers' organisation against all the obstacles confronting us - the occupation, the political fragmentation of our society, the social meltdown caused by the war and terrorism. We will defend independent working class organisation against yellow trade unionism and a key fight in this is the struggle for our class to create the most basic of its organisations and for a secular constitution. These are the basic preconditions of our class being able to grasp hold of and then fight for a genuine vision of the future.