The other Iraq

Labour Friends of Iraq has a report on a recent fact-finding trip of British trade unionists.

Dave Anderson MP (Chair Labour Friends of Iraq) and Sue Rogers (TUC General Council) give an initial report of the recent LFIQ fact-finding trip to Iraq where we met the leadership of the Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdistan trade union movements.

Iraq may be on the knife edge of full-scale civil war but there is another Iraq and a non-sectarian future through its growing labour movement.

A million trade unionists are on the march throughout Iraq. A network of non-sectarian union federations, professional associations and civil society groups has emerged in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan.

They could hold the key to uniting the country in peace and prosperity but only if the federal government's repressive efforts to ban independent activity using Saddam's anti-union laws and by seeking to create sectarian client unions is reversed.

Iraqi unions want urgent assistance to retrieve their independence and to boost their clout as a social partner in reconstructing Iraq. This is a huge task.