IRAN Unpaid workers time protest with Ahmadinejad’s visit to Ahvaz

Unpaid workers time protest with Ahmadinejad’s visit to Ahvaz
Iranian sugar factory workers have staged a protest timed to coincide with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit to the city of Ahvaz in anger at 27 months of unpaid wages. Furious employees said production lines had closed down and their factory’s future had been thrown into doubt since its ownership was transferred from two state-run banks to the Ministry of Mines and Industries.
The workers’ spokesman said in Ahvaz: “Unfortunately the state-run banks that previously had owned the factory have refused to follow up on its problems. “Therefore the factory has closed down and none of the officials are taking responsibility for the problems of the factory and its unemployed workers.” The latest protests come after widespread workers’ demonstrations across Iran in recent weeks.
In the western city of Kermanshah, municipal contract workers demonstrated outside the local government building on April 17 in anger at their unpaid New Year bonuses. Employees of the Welfare Organization in the city of Qom, central Iran, gathered last week in protest at unpaid wages and working conditions.
In Abadan, southern Iran, workers and retired staff of the city’s Oil Company staged a protest outside the company’s office to object to a recent decision by the government to give housing units that had been promised to them to the Revolutionary Guards and security forces. In Tabriz, north-western Iran, crowds gathered outside the Iran-Khodro Factory on Friday in protest at the delay in delivering vehicles they have paid for.
Reports said their protest went unheeded by factory employees. And in Gachsaran, south-eastern Iran, people protested outside the town’s main police station on Wednesday in anger a four-month delay in the payment of subsidies due to them.