2017 May Day Statement of the Prosperous Iran Party (PIP)
Reinforcing the Iranians workers’ knowledge of self-organizing is the responsibility of all political parties in exile.
We are Commemorating International Workers Day while the workers of Iran are experiencing the most difficult periods of their lives in 2017. Iran’s economy is in a stagflation (depression along with high inflation) mode on one hand and on the other hand has been devastated by the regime’s looting and corruption, in a mafia like system. While all the heavy burdens are on the shoulders of wage earners in an extremely difficult economic situation, the state institutions, in order to deceive the public, raised the poverty level line at the end of last year for a family of four in urban areas that was estimated at about 3.5 million Tomans[1] (about $909 US), to 929,931 Tomans (about $241 US), which is 2.5 times less than the minimum that was estimated. The anti-workerr government of the Islamic Republic in all its indecency has proven that it is anti-democratic throughout its entire life.
This catastrophe occurs when based on credible reports due to the lack of any legal protection on one hand and unprecedented expansion of unemployment and presence of millions unemployed on the other hand, many workers are willing to accept wages even lower than the minimum wage such as 500,000 or 600,000 Tomans (about $139 or $156) a month.
There is no doubt that the catastrophic status is the result of the greed of employers affiliated with the Mafia operating State and the anti-people government cooperating with them. However, by looking at their policies for the last three decades we realize their predatory behavior in all aspects have been institutionalized. The important thing is that because of the weakness of the workers in defense of their rights, there must be some serious actions taken because being indifferent is not an option. Why should more than 20 million Iranian workers not be able to request and even demand their constitutional rights to be respected by the government and employers? This is something to consider for all workers and labor activists inside and outside of the country.
As we see, despite one year of opportunity for self-organizing the power of action has been wasted; and at the end of each year workers are the victims of injustice and employers and the government becomes victorious unjust. Hundreds of protests large and small are held yearly by the workers in many different parts of the country, but the results have been so insignificant for workers to even meet their smallest demands in accordance with runaway inflation to provide for their families. What is the solution?
We, in the Prosperous Iran Party (PIP), suggest the formation of workers’ self-organizations in Iran on one hand, and support and solidarity actions on the part of diaspora in exile on the other. This requires educational training, a long lasting effort that includes hundreds of thousands of workers equipped with the necessary knowledge of networking in their class struggle and the formation of entities such as self-organized cells and trade unions. Such workers are trained to be able to self-organize among workers and institutionalize such concepts.
Unless we get to the root causes of the main weaknesses of the workers struggles, not only will the struggles by the same weaknesses lack progress and prosper but also the deterioration of living conditions will make it not possible to resolve or unlock the inefficiency of workers struggles, nor be set on a progressive and desirable path.
That is why we in the Prosperous Iran Party have focused all of our efforts on raising awareness of knowledge, management capacity and self-organization among the workers, so the theory and the experiences of Iranians and non-Iranians in the field of self-organizing are transferred to the Iranian workers. We believe that if the political parties and organizations abroad take this part of the task seriously and systematically, workers in Iran will prevail in advancing their class struggle to the point of victory.
Political Office of the Prosperous Iran Party (PIP)
May 1st, 2017
درود بیانیه بسیار عالی تنظیم شده است.
باید به درون جامعه ایران نفوذش داد.
با مهر وسپاس
اسانلو