Mahmoud Salehi, former president of the Union of Bakers in Saqqez and founding member of the Coordination Committee for the establishment of workers’ organizations. Mr. Salehi has been imprisoned for several years due to his trade union activities and efforts to defend workers’ rights.

Considering the subject of the special issue of the monthly magazine “Khat-e-Solh”, we have approached Mahmoud Salehi to inquire about his opinions regarding the recent strikes of iron ore miners in Bafq, Yazd province.

He believes that the workers in Bafq went on strike due to fear of unemployment, fear of not receiving their wages, and fear of their legal benefits being reduced.

This labor activism, with reference to the united stance of workers in Bafgh, along with their families, for the freedom of their representatives who had been arrested upon the complaint of the CEO, is a great achievement. It is strongly criticized that the detained workers in Bafgh accepted to be released on bail. Mahmoud Salehi says, “Bail is for criminals and they had not committed any crime.”

It is worth mentioning that more than five thousand native and non-native individuals are employed in the iron mine of Bafq and approximately three million tons of iron ore is produced annually in this county and exported to steel factories in Isfahan and Khuzestan.

In your opinion, what consequences does the privatization of Bafgh iron mine, which led to a 16-day strike of 5000 workers, have especially for the workers?

Regarding the strike of workers in Bafgh mine, we must talk about the obstacle that has existed in the past for workers, especially for all workers in Iran, because we have a principle in our constitution – Article 44 – which states that all government-owned workshops and factories must be privatized. Therefore, the government itself is trying to privatize them. In this regard, for example, we have the workers of the oil company; they privatized the oil refinery company and said that a certain percentage of the workers will have a share, meaning they want the workers to have a stake in production and profits. They wanted to do the same thing in Bafgh mine. It is natural that any company or institution that becomes private can lay off its workers in case of crisis. This is done according to the labor laws that are in effect in Iran and all the labor laws approved by the Expediency Discernment Council and the parliament (only one percent of which is implemented in Iran

Of course, you answered some of our second question, but we wanted to ask why exactly the pressure of the workers in Bafgh to prevent privatization? What exactly are the workers looking for?

Well, the workers know that all the private workshops that have been affected by the crisis, fire their workers and Bafgh is a small city in Yazd province. Many people who live there work in this mine and if they are fired or their wages are reduced, their lives will be destroyed. The workers in Bafgh have gone on strike precisely because of the fear of unemployment, the fear that their wages will not be paid, and the fear that their legal benefits will be reduced.

Mr. Salehi, in your opinion, did the two-stage strike of Bafq workers have any achievements and if so, what were those achievements?

Well, you see, whether it has been successful or not, it needs to be further investigated. My personal opinion is that, considering the current situation in Iran, this strike had no achievement for the workers. The only achievement was that the workers stood united to free their representatives, who had been arrested upon the complaint of the CEO. But on the other hand, if we look at it, the workers who were there should not have accepted bail, and this is a very important point. Accepting bail means that you are a criminal and have committed a crime; therefore, these workers have not been released yet and are only free on bail. The bails were 70 million and 50 million tomans… In a few days, when they take these people to court, they either have to remain silent or be sentenced to the mass prisons that our country has a history of.

What was the reason for the confrontation of security and law enforcement forces with the insurgents and the detention of some of them?

Security forces and law enforcement have always defended the interests of capitalists, not the interests of the working class; therefore, they support the capitalists. On the other hand, the CEO complained about the workers and a private case was created for them, and anyone who was arrested on this basis was natural. But in our country, security forces and law enforcement have always been against the workers, even though these security forces themselves are the sons or brothers of workers, but because their interests lie elsewhere, they must suppress them. In Kurdistan, they say that these workers have political and party issues, and with these words, their hands become more open and they can easily suppress them, but this is not the case in Bafq, Yazd, and they have only accused them of having foreign hands because the workers stood up. This is untrue and the workers have gone on strike to have job security.

After the workers of Tehran oil refinery were able to organize and free their colleagues from prison in the first months after the revolution, this was one of the few instances where a workers’ strike could force the government to release imprisoned activists and labor leaders, even with bail or guarantee. What is your evaluation of this issue? What positive lessons and weaknesses did this movement have?

In my opinion, the working families of Bafq should not accept any form of bail. Because they had united and stood for sixteen days. If they had stood for two to five more days, the workers would have been released on bail, not with a bail agreement; a bail agreement confirms the workers’ criminality while they did not commit any crime. Even if we look at the Islamic Penal Code, this law does not say that someone who fights for their rights should be issued a bail agreement. This in itself is a crime.

In any case, since they have no prior history of imprisonment and were not aware of these issues, they accepted bail and accepting such a thing was completely unaware. We must tell the workers that we want to take our rights, we should not be afraid. Bail is for criminals and we have not committed any crime. I speak to the workers of Bafq: Workers of Bafq, if today you are condemned in the name of parties or illegal organizations, it is only for your peace, not that you have committed this crime. I beg you not to accept this, if tomorrow you go to interrogation, go to court, go to questioning, do not accept these. These workers and people who stood there and went on strike, were for you and to support you, and until you were free, they did not return to their homes and this is unity; that is unity of a city. But unity against whom? Well, against me or against themselves, it has not been against

The absence of independent unions has always been a weakness for workers in Iran; what role could such a union have played in the strike in Bafq?

See, the workers in Bafgh have formed an Islamic Council and these are the same gentlemen who were in prison, they are members of the Islamic Councils. Any organization that is formed, whether it be a union, association, or Islamic work councils, its direction determines the identity of that organization, not its name and form. In this period (during the strikes in Bafgh), those same Islamic councils that we now call “reformist” were successful and practically turned the movement around.

For example, a few years ago, the Islamic councils of the textile factory in Kurdistan province were on strike for several nights and their leader was among them. Therefore, their orientation, whether in the service of capitalism or the working class, is important to us. Of course, these statements do not mean the approval of the Islamic councils, but in this particular case, in Bafq, they did a good job in my opinion.

However, in any case, there is no freedom syndicate in Bafq.

Yes, it is true. Not only in Bafq, but in no part of Iran is there a free trade union. In Iran, as I am speaking with you right now, dozens of members of the coordinating committee, of which I am also a member, are in prison. And we have at least a hundred open cases that may be prosecuted in the near future and they may also be sent to prison. It is natural that in Iran, no free trade unions, or even Islamic councils in some factories, are allowed to form; like the Iran Khodro factory, which has at least 20,000 workers and does not have an Islamic council.

If there is any point at the end, please let me know.

Apart from emphasizing once again that privatization is one of the main concerns of workers at the moment, I want all workers and all those who support the working class to cover all the reports and problems that exist in Iran. I have nothing else to say.

Thank you for the time you have given me on the line.