Contract Workers In Iran’s Natural Gas Industry Extend Protests
Contract workers from the South Pars Gas Complex on Iran's Persian Gulf coast continued their protests on Saturday for the third consecutive week.
Contract workers from the South Pars Gas Complex on Iran's Persian Gulf coast continued their protests on Saturday for the third consecutive week.
Amid an information blackout by state media, a Telegram channel following labor news and regularly reporting on the demonstrations, announced that the latest protests encompassed nine refineries of the South Pars.
The protesting workers have made it clear that they intend to persist with their gatherings during specified hours and days until their demands are addressed by the authorities.
According to the Telegram channel, the primary demands of the refinery workers include the removal of intermediary contracting companies, the complete implementation of the job classification plan, and the utilization of benefit cards.
Simultaneously, reports have surfaced regarding protests by contract workers in the oil industry in Ahvaz. The Civil civil protest Telegram channel disclosed that the main demands of the protesters revolve around the full implementation of the legal resolution issued by the Administrative and Employment Council of the Oil Industry in 2021 regarding improvement of work conditions. Other demands include amending the calculation formula for the productivity bonus to align with that of fixed-term employees and revising the overtime calculation formula based on the Labor Law.
The protests are indicative of the escalating frequency of workers' demonstrations in Iran in recent years, signaling a growing discontent within the labor force. The challenges faced by contract workers in both the South Pars Gas Complex and the oil industry in Ahvaz underscore the urgency for authorities to address the concerns of the workforce.
In recent years, Iran's oil and gas sector have replaced thousands of regular employees with contract workers, who have to endure hard conditions with low pay.
Iranian missile attacks on the Kurdish region of Iraq, along with similar strikes on targets in Syria and Pakistan, have heightened concerns among Iranians that a war may erupt involving Iran at any moment.
While some Iranian pundits have suggested the possibility of a war between Iran and the United States within the next two years, other observers argue that such a scenario is unlikely unless there are exceptional circumstances. Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, has labeled Iran as the most significant regional security threat, coupled with Iranian proxy groups' daily attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Iran launching missile strikes on three countries in less than a day.
The Iranian currency, rial, has fell to its eight-month low against the US dollar this week, trading at 540,000 per dollar.
Pro-reform daily Setareh Sobh [Morning Star] on Wednesday directly linked the turmoil in the rising dollar exchange rate and the price of gold in Tehran to the prevailing geopolitical tensions.
According to the daily, diplomacy could be the only way to control the markets in Iran. However, with a war raging on in the region, and Iran playing a major part in the conflict, leaves little chance for diplomacy. In the meantime, the Iranian government has proven during the past three years that it is absolutely incapable of influencing the markets.
Meanwhile, Iranian economist Hossein Raghfar told Fararu website that the most vulnerable segments of the Iranian society are suffering more under the pressure of rising inflation. Prices of foodstuff have been rising exponentially during the past months.
The government's spokesman has acknowledged that the surge in prices is a direct result of military developments in the region. He pointed out that the US and its allies' airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen have generated a feeling of insecurity in Iran, contributing to an overall atmosphere of instability. Nevertheless, Iranian Minister of Economy Ehsan Khandouzi asserted that the government is making every effort to manage the "price fluctuations."
Mohammad Kashtiarai, the Chairman of the Iranian Goldsmiths Trade Union has also told Khabar Online that the rising price of gold in Iran is the outcome of political developments in the region.
This sense of instability comes after years of a longer trend of uncertainty for Iranians, who no longer see a decent future for themselves and their children.
The sense of instability and insecurity is also reflected in a report by the presidential Office's Strategic Studies Center that painted an alarming picture of hopelessness among Iranians that leads to a flood of emigration. Former government spokesman Ali Rabiei has agreed with the report, highlighting that the main reason for the emigration of educated and skilled Iranians is the government's poor performance that has left no hope regarding the future of the country.
Rabiei wrote: "The report indicates that the underlying factors driving migration from Iran are not primarily economic or related to issues such as unemployment. The central issue is the lack of a clear vision for the country's future provided by the government." He further commented, "Today, immigration differs from the past. For example, when an Iranian chooses to move to Germany, it's not for political aspirations or business prospects. They are leaving solely because they no longer wish to reside in Iran. This is profoundly concerning."
Rabiei also warned that "Iran is the world's number one country in terms of wasting its human resources. He pointed out that the inclination to migrate among educated Iranians has risen from 23 percent in 2014 to 46 percent in 2021."
Although all three branches of government are directly involved in the process of censorship, by appointing half of the members of the committee that decides which sites should be filtered, the President should be held accountable for the problems Iranians face in free access to the Internet, the association’s report published Monday said.
Raisi has repeatedly said his government will provide fast internet services to Iranians at low costs, but the government recently allowed providers to increase their tariffs by about 34 percent and the speed has deteriorated so much that even some government officials including the President himself have admitted it.
“Iran's internet situation is very similar to poor and underdeveloped countries, internet access quality indices show, but the main difference [with those countries] is that in Iran's case these conditions are self-inflicted,” the report said.
Self-inflicted, the report says, means that a significant part of the country's internet access problems, from filtering to speed that affects loading times as well as widespread disruptions, arise from policies, management and laws rather than problems in infrastructure development such as fiber optic expansion which the government insists is the solution to the problem.
Tehran E-Commerce Association was founded in 2019 by several major ecommerce and online services companies including Digikala e-commerce platform, Snapp vehicle for hire, Cafe Bazar app store for the Android operating systems, and Divar classified ads and e-commerce platform and has so far published two detailed reports.
According to the recent report, there has been relative improvement in latency and bandwidth and access to restricted sites since July when the first report was released, but the improvement has made very little difference in ease of access to the internet because Iranians are still forced to use anti-filtering software (VPNs) which costs families lot of money amid an annual inflation rate of 50 percent and affects the quality of their access.
The report shows that filtering at IP level causes collateral damage and restricts access to many websites without reason and forces users to use anti-filtering software at all times.
Iran not only filters a vast array of websites including all major social media platforms and international platforms such as Google Play but has also employs a reverse filtering procedure called Iran Access to block the access of users outside the country to many Iranian websites including the websites of government organizations as well as banks and other financial entities. This is apparently to reduce the risk of foreign hacking, which has been occurring frequently, targeting government organizations.
The use of anti-filtering software makes users’ equipment more vulnerable to cyber threats and exposes online businesses to greater risks of user data leaks, the report added.
Hackers have targeted online businesses many times in recent years to steal personal information and sensitive data. Only last week Snapp Food, the largest online food delivery platform in Iran, was hacked by an Iranian hacking group that claimed it had accessed the personal details of over 20 million users.
