From In These Times. Unfortunately this author has the name of the union's
federation wrong. What Reingold calls the Workers’ Democratic Trade Union Federation is actually the Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions (IFTU). http://www.iraqitradeunions.org/
-Joel Wendland
http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=701_0_2_0_C
Hassan Jum’a is an impressive negotiator. As head of the 10,000-member Southern Oil Company Union in Iraq, last December he successfully challenged the hiring and wage policies of Al Khorafi, a Kuwaiti subcontractor for the U.S. construction giant Bechtel and the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR). Jum’a’s union first flexed its muscles against Al Khorafi in October, when its members launched a two-day wildcat strike at the Bergeseeya oil refinery in Basra. They literally dragged out the predominantly Pakistani and Indian workforce Al Khorafi had imported and demanded that the company hire Iraqi workers in their place.
Union members also protested at Al Khorafi’s headquarters, and tribal leaders topped off the strike by threatening to bomb the company’s offices. Jum’a’s strong-arm tactics paid off, and his union now controls access to all Southern Oil locations, barring all foreign workers and KBR representatives. Al Khorafi, the largest subcontractor in Iraq, is now doing its best to placate the powerful union. The company is paying wages of $125 per month—more than three times the state-enterprise minimum wage level set by Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) administrator Paul Bremer. Al Khorafi even donated wheelchairs, blankets, computers, and desks to the union and renovated a private hospital for Khorafi employees, according to Occupation Watch, an NGO in close contact with the union.
more at: http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=701_0_2_0_C
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