Retirees' Livelihood Protests in Several Cities in Iran; Seventh Day of Steel Workers' Strike in Ahvaz

Livelihood protests in Iran continued on Monday, February 9, with widespread gatherings of retirees from the Telecommunications Company in several cities, a strike by steel workers in Ahvaz, and protests by victims of the Amitis Company in Tehran. According to reports received by VOA and published on social media, a number of retirees from the Telecommunications Company of Iran held protest gatherings on Monday in several cities including Tehran, Urmia, Isfahan, Kermanshah, Zanjan, Khorramabad, Shiraz, Sanandaj, Rasht, and Bandar Abbas. Retired protesters in Tehran chanted: 'If one embezzlement is reduced, our problem will be solved.' In Ardabil, northwest Iran, protesting retirees, referring to the dominance of the Revolutionary Guards over Iran's economy, including the Telecommunications Company, chanted: 'Instead of a working man, a military man is sitting.' In Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province, retirees emphasized in their slogans: 'We are retirees, we demand our rights.' In Rasht, the capital of Gilan province, protesting retirees chanted: 'The company has become a hundred pieces, it's all about eating and drinking.' The weekly protests by retirees from the Telecommunications Company in recent months have been in response to their unmet demands, including the implementation of regulation 89/24 and benefits such as supplementary insurance. Regulation 24 of the Civil Service Law, passed in 2010, concerns assignable duties and how to purchase services from the private sector, stating that 'until the barriers to assignment are removed,' the provision of services to the workforce remains the responsibility of the executive body, namely the government. However, after 13 years since the approval of this regulation, and given the continuous protests of these retirees, it seems that neither the 'barriers to assignment' have been removed nor has the executive body fulfilled its duties towards the protesters. Simultaneously with the livelihood protests of retirees and pensioners from the Telecommunications Company, workers of the National Industrial Steel Group of Iran on Monday, February 9, gathered in Ahvaz on the seventh day of their strike in protest of the failure to meet their professional demands. The Telegram channel 'Voice of National Steel Workers' issued a statement on Monday, referring to 'a new wave of strikes,' declaring these protests as 'the result of empty promises and deception of workers by the owner and CEO,' indicating that 'there is no one to respond to our demands.' The statement emphasized: 'Over seventy percent of labor workshops in the country have not benefited from the job classification plan, and its non-implementation is due to policies of 'de-securitizing jobs' and 'temporaryizing the workforce.' The protesting steel workers stated in this statement that 'the implementation of these policies by the government has led to the suppression of demands,' stressing that 'it puts workers at risk of dismissal and rights violations, significantly raising the cost of demanding rights. The situation faced by our colleague Karim Sayahi can be seen under this policy.' The statement also noted: 'One of the goals of our strikes is to disrupt the equation of unemployment and temporaryization of the workforce. Therefore, we have raised two fundamental demands, namely 'full implementation of the job classification plan' and 'conversion of the status of Shafaq Company personnel,' and for this reason, we emphasize complete unity among contractual and outsourced workers.' According to a previous report from this Telegram channel, the National Bank of Iran, which manages this industrial complex, despite promises to pay 50% of the job classification plan, has announced that it is only willing to pay five percent plus one and a half million tomans to the workers. Additionally, on the same day, a group of victims of the Amitis Company gathered in front of the office of the Chief Justice in Tehran. They protested with the slogan 'What kind of justice is this? The fraudster is a fugitive,' in response to the escape of the main suspect in the fraud case of this company from prison. The Amitis Company, operating in the cryptocurrency sector, had attracted about '3 trillion tomans' in investment from across Iran, which led to a case with 'two thousand plaintiffs' following the 'fraud' of this amount, with 'Akbar Dadashi' being arrested as the main suspect. However, in December of this year, Iranian state news agencies, including Tasnim News Agency, reported that Akbar Dadashi 'managed to escape from prison by a trick and fled the country.' According to placards held by the protesting victims, the number of victims of the Amitis Company is '10,000.'