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Maryam Rajavi on Iranian workers’ rights

Please note, Maryam Rajavi’s quotes have been taken from speeches that she has made across the years and do not specifically relate to the current situation in Iran, although the comparisons are quite startling.

Currently, Iran is in an economic crisis, with the exchange rate plummeting, record unemployment, and rampant inflation. But Maryam Rajavi has been quick to point out that this is not merely the result of US sanctions, instead, as she has said many times before, it is the result of the Iranian Regime’s corruption and it’s Iranian workers who pay the steepest price, often losing their jobs or their savings, whilst prices for essentials skyrocket.

In 2013, Maryam Rajavi said: “The treacherous policy of allocating a lion’s share of the country’s revenues to the war and massacre in Syria, has made Iranian workers ever poorer and destitute.”

She cited that Iran’s minimum wage had remained stagnant at one dollar per hour, which was less than a quarter of the minimum wage in Greece, a country that was then riddled with financial troubles.

Job insecurity
In that same speech, Maryam Rajavi explained that unemployment had only increased under President Hassan Rouhani and now millions were left without a job. And 93% of those who still had a job at the time were forced to sign employment contracts that stripped them of their rights and left them working for months without pay, according to the Iranian regime’s Labour Ministry. Again, the parallels between then and now are chilling.

Maryam Rajavi said: “This is one of the regime’s most cruel plans designed to subjugate workers and compel them into cheap labour. Iranian workers are among the world’s least-paid and most vulnerable workforce who face the constant threat of dismissal and the lowest job security. Despite the horrific economic stagnation in Iran, it is the ruling mullahs’ overlooking of the fate of workers that contributes most significantly to their victimization as a result of criminal policies.”

Crackdown on protesters
The mullahs are to blame for the economic collapse and the conditions that the Iranian people are now living under, yet they suffer none of the consequences. Is it any wonder the Iranian workers would be driven to strike?

Of course, the Iranian Regime does not allow peaceful protest and, as Maryam Rajavi points out, they will crack down on the workers’ legitimate protests with violence, threats, and mass imprisonment. After all, the mullahs consider that workers’ rights, including the right to join a union, stage strikes, ban abusive contracts, be paid promptly, gain health benefits, and many more, are a threat to the Iranian Regime.

Maryam Rajavi notes that because of this, Iranian workers will never gain the rights they deserve without regime change.

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