Iran's crackdown from clothes to labor

Amir Taheri:

HAVING set the Islamic Republic on a collision course with the United Nations on the nuclear issue, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears equally determined to confront his country's increasingly restive labor movement.

The showdown, which began last year, could reach a peak this week with government plans to crush May Day demonstrations by illegal trade unions.

In recent days, thousands of Islamic Revolutionary Guards have taken position around Tehran, ready to intervene if the International Labor Day demonstrations "get out of hand."

The Islamic Republic has always associated May 1 with leftist ideologies that it claims are "brewed by Jews," and tried to promote an alternative "Islamic Labor Day" on May 2.

This year, a number of illegal unions have announced May 1 demonstrations in Tehran and 20 provincial capitals. The new Workers' Organizations and Activists Coordination Council (WOACC), a grouping of over 80 illegal unions claiming a total membership of over a million in 22 cities, is leading the move.

Equally of concern to the authorities is a decision by the illegal Iranian Teachers' Association (ITA) to organize a mass May Day rally in front of the Ministry of Education headquarters in Tehran. This will be the first of a series of weekly demonstration by ITA, with the second set for May 17, in front of the Islamic Consultative Majlis (Parliament) building in Tehran.

Claiming to speak on behalf of Iran's estimated 450,000 teachers, ITA has shown its strength by organizing a series of strikes that shut down thousands of schools across the country since September.

WOACC, the workers/activists coun cil, emerged in the wake of strikes by Tehran transport workers that brought the capital to a standstill last year.

The authorities managed to end that strike with a mixture of mass arrests and wage concessions. But the example set in Tehran spread to other cities and industries.

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From the pervert clothes police to the suppression of speech, to the crushing of dissent by workers the Ayatollahs have a lot of unhappy people to deal with. Ahmadinejad can occasionally muster a PR effort on behalf of his mad desire for nukes or to embarrass the Royal Navy, but when it comes to doing the things governments are supposed to do he and the Ayatollahs are incredible failures.