Pulse article relating to the Iraqi labor forum today, 7 p.m. St. Paul

[katinmn]

http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1889
Still waiting for the freedom to organize

by Brian Kaller

No matter how many lies were told to promote or justify the U.S. government’s invasion of Iraq, there was one truth: Iraqis did want Saddam Hussein gone and had waited decades to regain their freedom.

They are still waiting, says Iraqi labor activist Amjad Ali Aljawhry. Hussein had prohibited workers from unionizing in a country with a decades-old tradition of radical and labor activism. After the fall of the Hussein regime, many Iraqis expected to regain such freedoms. But the American-led government has kept Hussein’s ban in place, and unionizing is still illegal in most places. The occupation government has also made other changes that have worsened the country’s rushing poverty and high unemployment.

The North American representative of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions of Iraq (FWCUI), Aljawhry is carrying on a heritage of labor organizing in a country whose rulers—usually Britain, the United States, or dictatorships backed by them—have imprisoned or executed union leaders.
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Amjad Ali Aljawhry and Falah Awan will speak at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 16 at the Carpenters’ Union, 710 Olive St., St. Paul.
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