Peaceful protests calling for honest wages and higher working situations meet arbitrary arrests
“For a few years, the overwhelming majority of Iran’s nursing workforce has been ladies, who’ve been systematically exploited and silenced,” mentioned Hadi Ghaemi, govt director of CHRI.
“Without the liberty to type unbiased commerce unions, employees face extreme retaliation from the federal government for merely demanding their legit rights, similar to honest wages and protected working situations,” he added.
The protests erupted following the dying of Parvaneh Mandani, a 32-year-old nurse from Fars province, on August 2. Mandani is believed to have died from overwork and her dying has develop into a rallying cry for nurses throughout the nation.
Nurses refusing to present in to violent oppression
“Many nurses and medical employees [name of hospital withheld] “Nurses have been protesting and shouting slogans when abruptly, members of an unidentified group in plainclothes attacked them and violently dispersed them,” a medical employee who took half in a protest in Iran’s second-largest metropolis, Mashhad, on August 17 instructed CHRI.
“The protesting nurses stood in entrance of the attackers and prevented the confrontation from escalating,” she mentioned on situation of anonymity. “The hospital authorities spoke to the nurses in threatening tones and mentioned they’d hearth all of the contract nurses and employees in the event that they continued their protest and strike.”
“The depth of the protests in Mashhad’s massive hospitals has subsided after authorities made guarantees and satisfied some nurses and medical employees to cease protesting, however everybody is aware of that if the disaster continues, the protests will resume,” she added.
Nurses protest in opposition to harsh working situations and insufficient wages
Nurses in Iran are topic to harsh working situations, together with lengthy working hours and staffing shortages, which, mixed with low wages and an absence of ample help from the federal government, take an enormous bodily and psychological toll on them. As a outcome, some overworked nurses have reportedly dedicated suicide.
The protests started within the metropolis of Karaj in Alborz province west of Tehran and rapidly unfold throughout the nation.
As of August 27, the areas embody Tehran, Karaj, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz, Isfahan, Rasht, Yazd, Kermanshah, Ahvaz, Arak, Bandar Abbas, Nishapur, Bushehr, Gorgan, Ilam, Marivan, and Dehadasht.
Violent crackdown
On August 27, a video was printed on the Internet exhibiting police within the Islamic Republic suppressing ongoing peaceable protests.
In Bushehr, police violently dispersed emergency medical employees who had joined nurses in a protest calling for larger wages. Police presence was additionally closely reported on the demonstrations in Tehran.
The nurses shouted slogans similar to “Enough guarantees, we have now no meals”, “Nurses, shout to your rights” and “Don’t be afraid, we’re all on this collectively”.
The precise variety of arbitrary arrests is unclear. Victims embody Pouya Esfandiari, a Kurdish nurse from Divandar, Kurdistan, who works at Milad Hospital in Tehran. According to the Hengaw human rights group, Esfandiari was arrested by Iranian safety forces on August 20 and brought to an undisclosed location.
Zahra Tamandon, head nurse at Tehran’s Masih Daneshwari Hospital, was detained on August 21 together with a number of different nurses whose identities haven’t been confirmed. Tamandon was launched three days later.
Two nurses have been detained in Arak on August 24, and one other was arrested in Isfahan on August 26.
No further particulars about these incidents have been launched.
Nurses demand honest wages and higher working situations
Nurses throughout Iran have made a collection of key calls for of their ongoing strike, highlighting the pressing want for reform within the well being sector, crucial of which is to lift salaries to a minimum of 30 million tomans (about US$505) consistent with inflation, and to lift the official minimal earnings above the poverty line.
Additionally, they’re demanding the reemployment of nurses who have been unfairly fired following the COVID-19 outbreak.
“These calls for replicate nurses’ broader battle for honest wages, higher working situations and a well being care system that really helps each nurses and sufferers,” Ghaemi mentioned.
Iranian labor teams in solidarity with nurses
The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations expressed help in a solidarity assertion: “We hope that our pricey nurses will obtain their calls for by way of unity and collective motion…What unites us, Iranian educators, and also you, the nurses of this nation, is our frequent ache. Consider us your sympathizers.”
Labour organisations throughout the nation, together with the Coordination Committee for Support and Organisation of Trade Unions, the Khuzestan Provincial Pensioners Union and the Haft Tapeh Sugar Factory Workers, have additionally voiced their help for the protesting nurses.
“Workers, academics and pensioners have been combating to realize most of the similar calls for as nurses concerning dwelling prices, wages and welfare advantages,” the three organisations mentioned in a joint assertion on August 26.
“Unless the working and remunerative situations of those hard-working folks enhance, our already commercialised well being care system will proceed to push increasingly folks to the brink of dying and spoil,” they mentioned.
Iran’s violations of home and worldwide obligations
Although the Islamic Republic’s structure ensures the correct to type “skilled associations,” neither the structure nor labor regulation acknowledges the correct to refuse work and strike or to type unbiased commerce unions.
The Iranian authorities doesn’t acknowledge unbiased commerce unions, imprisons their leaders on spurious nationwide safety expenses, and routinely arrests people who peacefully protest in opposition to working situations – all in violation of elementary rules of the International Labor Organization (ILO), to which Iran is a signatory.
Iran grew to become a founding member of the ILO in 1919, however has not ratified the group’s key conventions, notably these regarding the correct to type unbiased unions and the correct to collective bargaining. Conventions it has ratified embody:
ILO Convention 87, “Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organize Convention,” ensures employees the correct to type and be a part of commerce unions of their very own selection with out interference from authorities. ILO Convention 98, “Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention,” protects employees’ rights to prepare and cut price collectively with their employers.
The Islamic Republic has additionally dedicated critical violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which defend the correct to protest and type unbiased associations.
The Nursing Wages Act, which stipulates that nurses’ salaries must be based mostly on workload and efficiency, has but to be carried out because it was handed in 2006.
A key provision of the 2009 Productivity Act, which required the federal government to take care of ample staffing within the well being system, has additionally not been carried out.
The Ministry of Health has not employed any new employees in years, leaving public hospitals severely understaffed and nurses overwhelmed.
“Despite being sure by each home legal guidelines and worldwide treaties defending employees’ rights, the Islamic Republic repeatedly violates these obligations in observe,” Ghaemi mentioned.
“This brutal crackdown follows a long time of impunity and the worldwide group’s failure to carry Iran to account for its widespread human rights violations,” he added.
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