The State of Labor in Iran’s Oil and Petrochemical Industry

Translator’s note: On May 24, a massive explosion and fire at a newly inaugurated oil refinery in Abadan led to the deaths and injuries of an unknown number of workers. The explosion, caused by technical problems, occurred during a facility inauguration ceremony that had prompted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to boast of Iran’s growing capacity to refine oil. According to Hamid Reza Katouzian, head of the Energy Commission of the Majles, Iran’s parliament, “experts had forewarned that the Abadan refinery was not ready to be inaugurated.”

The explosion underscored once again the lack of safe working conditions in Iran’s oil and petrochemical industry. In addition, recent labor strikes have challenged the industry’s reliance on temporary contracts for its labor force. In March, 1,800 contract workers at the Tabriz Petrochemical Complex demanded that they be hired directly in order to receive the benefits and job security provisions to which permanent employees are entitled. In April, 1,500 striking workers at the Imam Khomeini Port Petrochemical Complex located in Khuzestan near the Gulf made similar demands.
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Thoughts on the Plan for Targeted Monetary Subsidies

Translator’s note: Last March, The Tehran-based Center for the Defense of Labor Rights held a roundtable at which various left-wing Iranian economists and labor activists commented on the Plan for Targeted Monetary Subsidies. Below are excerpts from comments made by Mohsen Hakimi, labor activist and translator of Georg Lukacs’s Young Hegel.
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