She said: “I congratulate you on the occasion of International Workers’ Day, which holds the promise of liberation and victory for workers and the elimination of exploitation and injustice.”

Maryam Rajavi noted that the workers were on the opposite side of the “criminal” clerics and the “bandit” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which only seeks to destroy and waste the country’s resources, and that the workers could help overthrow the Regime.

She said: “Defeating this regime and obtaining freedom and social justice will be possible through the struggle waged by you and all the arisen people of Iran in the great army of liberation; the army of the impoverished, unemployed, homeless, the displaced and flood victims.”

Maryam Rajavi explained that the Iranian Regime had only made conditions worse for workers over the years by:

  • Increasing layoffs and unemployment
  • Intensifying short-term labour contracts (96% of workers are now on temporary contracts)
  • Reducing wages (Iranian workers are some of the lowest paid in the world)

Maryam Rajavi advised that 83% of workers now live under the poverty line, unable to make ends meet, but the factory owners are still deducting their losses from the workers’ paychecks. The Social Welfare Organization actually steals 30% of workers’ earnings.

As always, Maryam Rajavi points out, women bear the brunt of the anti-labour practices, including layoffs and low wages, but more worrying still is the fate of children.

Maryam Rajavi said: “Even more painful is the fate of children in southern Tehran who are forced to scavenge through garbage. According to state-run media, the mullah-run municipality in Tehran uses these children in what has been called an act of slavery in southern districts of the capital.”

Amidst this ongoing economic crisis, the recent flooding in Iran has dealt a massive blow to infrastructure and facilities, with the main victims being working people. The Regime has tried to paint to disaster as insignificant to justify their lack of help, but the Iranian people know better.

Here are the demands that Maryam Rajavi lays out of behalf of the Iranian people:

  • Provide housing and shelter for flood victims
  • Give all household breadwinners unemployment insurance
  • Pay all delayed wages immediately
  • Give health insurance to all workers and their families

Maryam Rajavi said: “Despite all these intolerable pressures, despite the barbaric exploitation inflicted by the clerical regime that shatters the physical and psychological well-being of workers, and despite the whip of suppression striking their bodies, workers and toilers of Iran will neither rest nor surrender, and they have shown as much with their protests and uprisings over the past year. They can rely on the ongoing support and solidarity of women, youth, students and all the disenchanted sectors of Iranian society.”

She continued: “They will unite, they will protest, strike and rise up, and they will eventually upend the prevailing instruments of oppression and suppression by overthrowing the clerical regime. On this path, one can and must overpower the regime’s intimidating policies and divisive ploys. The prerequisite for obtaining the violated rights of workers is the struggle against the entire anti-labour regime.”