Iraqi anti-occupation trade unionists tour U.S.

From left: Clarence Thomas, co-chair of the Million Worker March and ILWU Local 10 executive board member; Falen Abbood Umara, general secretary, GUOW; and Trent Willis, President, ILWU Local 10 and co-chair of Million Worker March.

The history of the General Union of Oil Workers in Iraq is unique. It was founded 11 days after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. That August, the union struck for three days and won wage increases for its members.

GUOW fought Halliburton’s subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, Root against privatization of the oil industry, and the military industrial occupation of Iraq.

Since the strike, the union has grown to over 23,000 workers in 10 oil and gas companies in Basra, Amari, Nassiriya, and Anbar provinces. Yet it is not recognized as the collective bargaining representative of the oil workers.

From the very beginning of the occupation, GUOW denounced Paul Bremer and the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority and the Allawi puppet government.

GUOW President Hassan Juma’a Awad, a co-thinker and colleague of GUOW General Secretary Faleh Abbood Umara, wrote an article in the Feb. 18 Guardian of London. It was headlined, “Leave Our Country Now.” Some excerpts:

“From the beginning, we were left in no doubt that the U.S. and its allies had come to take control of our oil resources ... Our union has ... shown it is able to stand its ground against one of the most powerful U.S. companies, Dick Cheney’s KBR (subsidiary of Halliburton), which tried to take over our work places with the protection of occupation forces ...

“We reject and will oppose all moves to privatize our oil industry and natural resources. We regard this privatization as a form of neocolonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation. ...

“And today we are resisting this brutal occupation together, from Falluja to Najaf to Sadr City. ... We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don’t want a timetable—this is a stalling tactic.”

GUOW leader in SF

More than 200 Local 10 members attended. On June 16 in San Francisco, Local 10 of the International Longshore Worker Union hosted a meeting with Umara of GUOW.

The Million Worker March sponsored events for the Iraqis at other venues. MWM’s Clarence Thomas presented Umara with MWM tee shirts, pens and DVDs. A videotape of Thomas’ visit to Baghdad in October 2003 was shown.

In addition to ILWU Locals 10 and 34, the Iraqi union leaders have met with labor councils in the Bay area—San Francisco and Alameda (Oakland). And they spoke at a packed meeting at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley.

There were also meetings with oil workers in the Los Angeles area and in Martinez, a port in the Bay area, who are seeking to establish bilateral relations with GUOW. During the West Coast trip, the GUOW leaders appeared at many other events.

As a result of the tour, the potential for international solidarity with Iraqi workers and their unions will grow. The strategy laid out by the GUOE leadership is a splendid example of a perspective that has the support of the Million Worker March Movement and those anti-imperialist, anti-racist forces here that want an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops and the end of the occupation.