In the days before and after February 22, 1979, the clergy, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, made various promises to the lower classes of Iranian society, including workers, citing different narratives and hadiths. Workers, who, according to the founder of the Islamic Republic, brought the revolution to victory with their extensive strikes, were promised various benefits. We start with Khomeini's speech on February 1, 1979: "Do not be happy that we are only building housing. We will provide free water and electricity, and free buses." In later years, he spoke of the Prophet kissing the hands of workers and noted that the first, fifth, and sixth Imams of Shia Islam were also workers. Alongside these, a saying from the sixth Imam was quoted, stating that workers' wages should be paid before their sweat dries.
At that time, numerous labor organizations were formed, and labor activists and workers who had established workers' councils months before the revolution had the opportunity to present their overdue demands and request their fulfillment from the new government. Among these demands were reforms to labor laws, especially the abolition of Article 33, which granted employers the right to dismiss workers, as well as wage increases, implementation of labor rights conventions, annual leave increases, and reductions in weekly working hours; some of these demands, such as the removal of Article 33, were realized.
On May 1, 1979, the front page of the Ayandegan newspaper reported the largest workers' demonstration alongside the news of the assassination of Morteza Motahhari. However, following the May Day celebrations in 1979 organized by the Islamic Republic Party, confrontations with labor organizations began. Among the first confrontations was the opposition to workers' councils in factories and the seizure of the Workers' House. Sadegh Kargar, a labor activist residing in Norway, states: "First of all, after the revolution, the Workers' House was occupied by some independent labor unions and councils. They went there and held their programs for a while. But from the early days of the revolution, they were repeatedly attacked by thugs, known as Hezbollah, but they were unsuccessful in taking it. Once they did take it, but the unemployed, who were well organized at that time, came and reclaimed the Workers' House. After about 11 months following the revolution, they distributed leaflets after Friday prayers in December 1979, stating that the Workers' House had fallen into the hands of counter-revolutionaries and that we should go and reclaim it. In summary, a large army was brought, and they managed to take the Workers' House after 11 months of it changing hands twice. Before that, after the revolution, they suddenly raised the minimum wage significantly compared to previous years—though later they did not pay wages for several years and compensated for it—to calm the workers so that they would not react too much when attacking councils and unions. They aimed to separate the base of the councils and unions from them. The councils resisted until around 1981, but the unions were hit harder than other places. The unions were also active. After they took the Workers' House, they did not stop there. They began to seize centers that were unions outside the Workers' House, such as a union in a center called the Solidarity Association of Councils and Unions in the Darvazeh Shahran area, the metalworkers' union at the Abbasi intersection, the bakers' union in the southern city, and several leatherworkers' unions, among others. The former Minister of Labor, Mr. Rabiei, was the main orchestrator of these suppressions. I remember once he gathered the union and warned that I happened to be there, and they were all there; Mr. Kamali and Mr. Mohajoub. Rabiei said if you do not shut down, we will come and take it from you. The union did not comply, and they came and took it..."
Confrontations with workers and labor activists continued in various forms. Groups known as thugs attacked labor gatherings. Labor activists and even vendors selling labor publications were not immune from these attacks. These confrontations intensified, especially with the onset of conflicts in Kurdish regions and then following Iraq's invasion of Iran. The most significant volume of confrontations with organizations and activists not affiliated with the Islamic Republic occurred between 1981 and 1983; confrontations that led to the forced cessation of these organizations' activities, the arrest of many labor activists, and the forced exit of others from Iran. During this decade, especially in 1987, a high number of detained labor activists, according to political and human rights organizations, were tortured and killed. Meanwhile, the war between Iraq and Iran was ongoing. Ali Mobaraki, a labor activist residing in Switzerland, who witnessed the confrontations with activists and labor organizations, states: "The suppression of organizations formed after 1979 began in early 1980. This suppression initially targeted independent labor unions and workers' councils in oil and other factory organizations. Specifically in Abadan, the Abadan Project Union, which had significant mobilization power, had about 14,000 members, and when it initiated movements on various occasions, a long line formed behind the union; from teachers, oil company workers, and workers from industries and factories in Abadan, even steel workers from Ahvaz. Despite the Islamic Republic wanting to suppress them, as they saw them as an obstacle to reaching the plunder and the colorful table laid before them, they could not find an excuse for suppression. Until the war came as a blessing to the Islamic Republic, and exactly six months later, they completely flattened a building related to the oil company with a bulldozer. The Abadan Project Union was not destroyed by Iraqi forces, but the people of the Islamic Republic knew exactly that their first base of the enemy was there and destroyed it. Also, for example, in Isfahan, a project union was formed, and one of its leaders was assassinated. The suppressions continued in a truly terrifying manner. Known labor activists were arrested, sometimes even if they were supporters of political organizations and parties, they were arrested by these crackdowns. Many labor activists were either assassinated, executed, or killed under torture, of which I personally know two or three cases and am essentially a living witness to this process. They managed to silence the labor movement with this brutal and savage suppression that could not happen anywhere in the world in 1980, except during the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile. They hunted people and labor activists in the streets and tortured them with cables. Essentially, during those years, they managed to silence the labor movement with this brutality and wickedness. They arrested the main activists and distanced them from the workplace and community. All of this led to the labor movement being silenced for a long time, considering the excuse of war and the blessing that was never consistently available to them, and they had immense interests in the war and were not willing to end it, using that blessing and excuse to strip workers of any power of protest and exerting every pressure on them in the name of war, labeling anyone as the fifth column and in league with the opposing side in the war. In the end, as we all witnessed, in 1987, how they 'cleaned' the prisons, as they put it.