worker discontent in Iran
http://www.merip.org/mer/mer241/maljoo.html
Worker Protest in the Age of Ahmadinejad
Mohammad Maljoo
Mohammad Maljoo is a lecturer in the Faculty of Economics at Allameh
Tabatabae University in Tehran.
In June 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unexpectedly won the presidency of
the Islamic Republic of Iran, after an intense campaign in which he
exerted great effort to present himself as the defender of the poor
and the working class. These classes, badly hurt by neo-liberal
economic policies in the period following the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq
war, had staged a number of organized and noisy protests in the years
preceding Ahmadinejad’s campaign, and they responded in significant
numbers to his appeal for votes. The first year and a half of
Ahmadinejad’s presidency, however, has seen an erosion of the social
contract between working Iranians and the state of a magnitude that
may be decisive for the future of democracy in Iran.
After Ahmadinejad assumed power, collective action by Iranian workers
has subsided, despite strong popular dissatisfaction with the
economy. Working people increasingly resort to disjointed, individual
and quiet protests; what looked like a budding movement for social
justice in 2004 now looks like a non-movement. What explains the
downswing in labor activism? The commitment of working people to
pursuing their collective interests has not flagged, but under
Ahmadinejad, the political opportunities for collective protest have
been severely restricted. Ensconced in power by elections in 2004 and
2005, hardline conservatives are more willing than their predecessors
to employ the force of the state to break workers’ movements. Pending
adjustments to the law governing worker-employer relations appear to
tilt the playing field further in the favor of management. Finally,
the demise of the reformist movement inside the Islamic Republic, and
the corresponding return of the conservatives, has sent a chill wind
blowing through all realms of political activity. The form and
vehemence of workers’ collective action in the future will depend on
the political opportunities available to them.
Economic Dissatisfaction at a Glance
According to a national survey of values and attitudes implemented in
2004 by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, about 71 percent of
Iranians are dissatisfied with “the economic situation of the
country,” while 25 percent are somewhat satisfied and only 5 percent
are very satisfied. The survey data showed about 71 percent of men,
70 percent of women, 72 percent of the employed and 79 percent of
university graduates classifying themselves as dissatisfied.[1]
Case studies of smaller groups also indicate a high level of disquiet
with the economy. A questionnaire distributed to primary and
secondary school teachers in Tehran found that nearly 60 percent,
when asked to “consider your salary from the Ministry of Education,”
expressed dissatisfaction with their jobs, while only 18 percent
evinced satisfaction.[2] These negative feelings are not confined to
the capital. Another research project revealed that about 10 percent
of teachers from the small town of Nishabur expressed strong job
dissatisfaction, while only 1?percent said they were very satisfied
with their jobs.[3]
According to one study, “One potent reason for job dissatisfaction
could be tied up not so much, as is generally assumed, with the
characteristics of the job as with the general satisfaction workers
experience as members of society.”[4] Strong job dissatisfaction, as
among these Iranian teachers, may have little to do with the
particulars of the conditions of their employment. Instead, it might
be a clear sign of deeper discontent with the situation of Iranian
working people in the private and public sectors. The discontent is
probably driven both by objective conditions, such as low and
stagnant wages and declining job security, and frustrations related
to the discrepancies between political slogans, like those of
Ahmadinejad on the campaign trail, and state performance.
[…]
Conditions of Possibility
The decline in militant collective action among both Tehrani teachers
and bus drivers under Ahmadinejad seems to capture the situation of
Iranian working people as a whole. Unhappy Iranian workers
increasingly pursue their interests through individual activities,
whether political or economic, rather than collective political
action. Indeed, the “vertical” communication of grievances to the
authorities that was prevalent during the “reformist moment,” thanks
to the more open society of those years, has given way to
“horizontal” grumbling with co-workers and colleagues. Alternatively
(or simultaneously), Iranians dissatisfied with their jobs seek
additional income-generating opportunities in their struggles to
survive and improve their individual lots.
How do we explain this trend in Iranian society? Fortunately, social
theory has something to say in this regard. The political economist
Albert O. Hirschman demonstrated that modern societies are
predisposed to oscillate between periods of intense preoccupation
with public issues and periods of almost total concentration on
individual improvement and private welfare goods. By taking the
psychological mechanism of disappointment seriously, Hirschman
explains the swing from public to private concerns as the result of
the frustrations of participation in public activity. Nevertheless,
disappointment by itself cannot explain the recent downturn in labor
activism in Iran.
As one of Hirschman’s critics writes, people’s choices may change
either as their preferences change or as their possibilities change.
[15] Indeed, in contemporary Iran, it is the shrunken possibilities
for working people that most credibly explain their relative
quiescence. At the legal level, the Ministry of Labor is slated to
forward amendments to the 1990 labor law that appear designed to
forestall independent worker organization. At the level of the state,
following the reconsolidation of hardline conservative control over
all the branches of government, the authorities are determined to
continue the repression of mass protest as well as to maintain an
intimidating atmosphere of retaliation. Last but not least, the power
struggles among reformist and conservative factions within the state,
which protest movements could sometimes exploit to promote their own
agendas, have disappeared with the defeat of the reformists. The main
question for Iranian workers is whether these structural conditions
of possibility will change in favor of revived worker activism.
[…]