By Jesse Russell

Labourstart.org reports that hundreds of striking bus drivers are being detained in Iran following attacks by security forces this weekend. According to the website workers are being intimidated into signing pledges to give up the strike or risk being fired. Police have reportedly been raiding homes of strikers and on some occasions beating family members. The workers for the state-run bus company are demanding decent pay and recognition of their union.

By Joanne Powers

The first official strike in the history of the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar has ended with a victory for workers. More than 300 Indian construction workers who went on strike last week returned to work yesterday when the companies involved agreed to pay them their back salary. Qatar's National Human Rights Committee and the Indian Embassy intervened to bring company officials and workers' representatives to the negotiating table. The employers also agreed to get workers' residence permits stamped and provide medical and other facilities. Afterwards, five strikers were

For the first time ever, laborers in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar are legally on strike. Over 300 foreign construction workers, mostly from South Asia, stopped working Thursday to protest salary and living conditions. Some have not been paid salaries for two to three months, and live in overcrowded rooms with inadequate air-conditioning and sanitary facilities. Worker visas have not been renewed by the company, and the strikers are concerned about deportation in an ongoing campaign against illegal workers. In 2004, Qatar became the third Gulf country to allow workers the right to strik

By Jesse Russell

Aaron Glantz, a reporter for Pacifica Radio and contributor to the Workers Independent News, spent parts of 2003 and 2004 covering the situation in Iraq outside of the US protected Green Zone where many reporters file stories from. Glantz has released a book called "How America Lost Iraq" it examines the situation on the ground and the life for the average Iraqi. Glantz sat down with WIN Monday to talk about his book. He says the unemployment rate is now at 70 percent and the while Iraqi's still wait for their electricity grid to be replaced, they are now watching as the food ration system they depend on is taken away.

Oil workers in the Iraqi city of Basra held a one-day strike Sunday calling on the government to allow the province to keep more oil revenues. 15,000 workers took part in the protest. Eighty percent of the 1.4 million barrels of crude that come out of Iraq is from the south, near Basra. The provincial governor says that too little revenue comes back to the region.

Members of the Iraqi labor movement have spent the last two weeks touring the United States. It is the first of its kind tour attempting to highlight the struggles of Iraqi workers under Saddam Hussein and new problems they are facing under the current government. Last Wednesday in Hartford, Connecticut, Adnan Rashed, a leader of the Union of Mechanics, Printing and Metals Workers, addressed a standing room only crowd at the state headquarters of 1199/SEIU. Melinda Tuhus was there for the Workers Independent News.
Members of three labor organizations have been speaking in different cities about current conditions of Iraqi workers and their families. All three federations oppose the U.S. occupation and want foreign troops to leave their country. Unemployment in Iraq is 50 percent, and US companies often bring in foreign workers instead of hiring Iraqis. Rashed says civil society is still not functioning. Through a translator, Rashed told the crowd:

US Labor Against the War is bringing a group of Iraqi Trade Unionists to the United States to talk to the American people about what Iraqi workers face organizing that country. David Bacon is a spokesperson for the organization:

[Bacon]: Workers in Iraq need help and solidarity from workers in the US. The purpose is to give unionists from both countries the chance to talk to each other, to find common ground and to help to end the war and occupation.

Some of the issues to be addressed are the conditions Iraqi workers face and how US labor organizations can support them in building a progressive secular Iraq.

Employees at a hotel in Iraq concluded a successful strike on Sunday. According to the Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions or IFTU. Workers went on strike at the prestigious Palastine Hotel in Baghdad in order to get a wage increase. Late last year workers staged another strike organized by the IFTU which resulted in the reinstatement of 27 employees who had been dismissed by management. Another result of last year's dispute was the formation of union committees at the Palastine and other major hotels in Iraq. The Palestine hotel is a popular place to stay for many foreign journalists and was the site of the April 2003 killing of two journalists by U.S.

A prominent and outspoken member of Iraq's Oil and Gas Union was murdered last week. According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, Ali Hassan Abd was one of the first activists to organize trade unions in the Iraqi oil industry in the post-Saddam war-torn country. The confederation has condemned the killing, as well as the torture and murder of workers throughout Iraq.

The AFL-CIO says Hadi Salih, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, will be sorely missed. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney condemned Salih's murder. The Iraqi labor leader was killed by assassins in his Baghdad home.

Often considered the most dangerous job in the world, soldiers preparing to leave Kuwait for Iraq yesterday had the rare opportunity to bring their concerns over military equipment they need to do their jobs to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

[Wilson1]: Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmour our vehicles?

After the cheering from more than 2,300 mostly National Guard and Reserve soldiers died down, Army Spc. Thomas Wilson repeated his question. Rumsfeld gave this reply:

[Rumsfeld1]: As you know you go to war with the Army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

The curtain rose this week on the eighteenth annual International Confederation of Free Trade Unions conference in Miyazaki, Japan. For the first time ever Iraqi trade unionists are in attendance. Since the fall of Saddam's regime, at least 10 independent trade unions have been set up in Iraq. The ICFTU has set up a training program in Jordan to help rekindle the once strong Iraqi labor movement. The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions faces many challenges including occupation. US forces arrested eight members of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions last year for staging a peaceful rally against the occupation.

As the toll of US soldiers killed in Iraq passes the 1,000 mark, the total number of deaths for migrant workers has peaked at 25. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions sent a letter to the Iraqi Prime Minister yesterday condemning the wave of hostage taking and killing of migrant workers in the war torn country. The number of foreign workers killed in Iraq since March 2003 jumped at the end of August following the video taped killing of 12 Nepalese and three Turkish workers. In addition, recent kidnappings of two Italian foreign relief workers were also condemned by the organization and has led many aid groups to consider pulling out. And earlier this month, seven truck drivers, from the countries of India, Kenya and Egypt were released by their captors, but only after their employer paid a ransom the equivalent $500,000 American dollars. In the letter, the ICFTU said that more than 20 workers are currently being held hostage and the group has called upon the Iraqi government to provide better security for workers of all nationalities.