Iraq
The ITUC affiliate in Iraq is the General Federation of Iraq Trade Unions (GFITU).
Iraq ratified Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Association
freedom of association
The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
and Protection of the Right to Organise (1948) in 2018 and Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining
collective bargaining
The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.
See collective bargaining agreement
(1949) in 1962.
Legal
Freedom of association / Right to organise
Freedom of association
The right to freedom of association is enshrined in the Constitution.
The right to freedom of association is recognised by law but strictly regulated.
Anti-Union discrimination
The law does not specifically protect workers from anti-union discrimination.
Restrictions on workers’ right to form and join organisations of their own choosing
- Single trade union system imposed by law and/or a system banning or limiting organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. at a certain level (enterprise, industry and/or sector, regional and/or territorial, national)
- Act No. 52 of 1987 established a de facto monopoly of the Confederation of Iraqi Workers’ Unions by prohibiting the establishment of other unions or federations.
Restrictions on trade unions’ right to organise their administration
- Other external interference allowed by law
- Article 42 of the Labour Law 2015 stipulates that it is a worker’s duty to refrain from arranging for meetings on workplace premises without the permission of the employer and the competent trade union body for labour union purposes.
Categories of workers prohibited or limited from forming or joining a union, or from holding a union office
- Other civil servants and public employees
- The Labour Law does not apply to public officials appointed in accordance with the Civil Service Law or a special legal text (art. 3(2) Labour Law).
Right to collective bargaining
Right to collective bargaining
The right to collective bargaining is not protected in law.
Barriers to the recognition of collective bargaining agents
- Excessive requirements in respect to trade unions’ representativity or minimum number of members required to bargaining collectively
- A registered trade union will only be able to compel an employer to enter into collective bargaining negotiations if the union represents more than 20 per cent of the workers in the enterprise. However, if a union does not meet the 20 per cent threshold, the ministry may organise a secret ballot of the other employees to verify what percentage of the unrepresented workforce supports the negotiations and authorise the union to negotiate on their behalf. If the percentage of workers who support the negotiation exceeds 50 per cent of the ballot participants – or if multiple trade unions make a common call for negotiation – the employer may not refuse to negotiate (art. 148 Labour Law).
Restrictions on the principle of free and voluntary bargaining
- Imposition of fixed and unreasonable procedural requirements (e.g. short time-limits for reaching an agreement)
- The negotiation period cannot exceed thirty days from the date of commencement of the negotiation (art. 149(3) Labour Law).
- Compulsory conciliation
conciliation
An attempt by a neutral third party, a conciliator, to aid the settling of an industrial dispute by improving communications, offering advice and interpreting issues to bring the disputing parties to a point where they can reconcile their differences. The conciliator does not take as active a role as a mediator or an arbitrator.
See arbitration, mediation and / or binding arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.
See conciliation, mediation procedure in the event of disputes during collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.
See collective bargaining agreement
, other than in essential services essential services Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
- If the parties are unable to resolve disputes as to future rights through mediation, the Minister may form an arbitration court to examine the dispute in the following cases: (i) where the parties agreed on referring the dispute to arbitration; (ii) upon request of the trade union or a party to the dispute if the dispute is about negotiations or the drafting of the first collective agreement of the workers represented by the union; or (iii) if the dispute is about a service whose suspension is threatening to the life, public safety or health of the entire population or to part thereof (arts. 160, 161 Labour Law).
- Authorities’ power to intervene in the preparation of collective agreements
- If the negotiation does not result in an agreement between the parties, any of them may request the Department to take the necessary steps to settle the dispute in accordance with the provisions of the Labour Law (art. 150(2) Labour Law).
Restrictions on the scope of application and legal effectiveness of concluded collective agreements
- Restrictions on the duration, scope of application or coverage of collective agreements
- A collective agreement may only apply to employees who are not members of the negotiating trade union, if the trade union(s) that negotiated the agreement represent 50 per cent of the enterprise’s workers or the Minister so orders at the request of one of the parties (arts. 151, 152, 153).
Right to strike
Right to strike
The right to strike is not specifically protected in law, but neither is it explicitly prohibited except for workers in essential services.
Barriers to lawful strike actions
- Excessively long prior notice / cooling-off period
- Seven days’ written notice of the strike must be provided to the Ministry and the other party (s 162(2) Labour Law).
Ban or limitations on certain types of strike actions
- Restrictions with respect to type of strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action (e.g. pickets, wild-cat, working to rule, sit-down, go-slow go-slow A form of industrial action whereby the workers deliberately reduce their pace of work in order to restrict output.
See work-to-rule ) - The workers on strike may not impede the freedom to work or perform any act that would prevent any other workers or the employer or his representative from going to the workplace and performing their usual work, whether by an act, threat, violence, abuse, or by occupying the workplace or damaging property (art. 162(8) Labour Law).
Limitations or ban on strikes in certain sectors
- Undue restrictions for “public servants”
- Act 150, adopted in 1987, bans all public sector workers from going on strike.
In practice
On 14 February 2022, Muhammad Al-Saidi, a member of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Workers in Iraq and a member of the General Union of Workers in the Oil and Gas Sector, was severely beaten during a peaceful demonstration in Dhi Qar, and several workers were unlawfully detained. Following the demonstration, Ahmad Ali Al-Zaidi, a trade unionist and employee at an oil facility in Dhi Qar Governatorate, was assassinated in what appears to be a retaliation for his activism during the 14 February demonstrations. The attack and the assassination come in a context of continuous harassment against independent trade unions as the government of Iraq attempts to impose a trade union monopoly and interfere in the internal affairs of trade unions.
Over the past year, peaceful and legitimate trade union demonstrations in the oil and electricity sectors were systematically disrupted by security forces. Workers and trade union leaders have been repeatedly subjected to internal investigation procedures and disciplinary measures for their legitimate trade union activities. In some cases, they have been transferred to other companies or other positions and threatened with legal penalties.
The General Federation of Trade Unions of Iraq (GFTU) announced that workers in companies under the Ministry of Industry and Minerals have been subject to different forms of repression after that they have led a series of protests against bad policies by these companies.
Among other things, the workers denounced the company’s incorporation plan and the arbitrary dismissal and transfer of staff.
In this context, the GFTU affirmed that the investment process jeopardises national energy and wastes professional and scientific skills in order to serve the interests of investors, with the complicity of the administrations that have made redundancies and unfounded transfers.
The GFTU cited the example of trade unionist Samira Nasseur Mizayen, transferred from the General Company of the Food Industry to the General Company of the Hydraulic Industries without any technical or legal basis. The trade unionist was transferred after freely expressing herself to defend the company and its employees.
Workers at the Ministry of Industry and Minerals companies have said they intend to continue their protests in order to defend the establishments to which they belong.
Over 250 protestors were killed by government forces throughout October and November 2019 during widespread protests against corruption and unemployment. Demonstrators were calling for jobs, improved social services and an end to widespread state corruption. During the protests, government security forces continuously attacked demonstrators using live ammunition, explosives and stun grenades.
On 29 October 2019, tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Tahrir Square in Baghdad to protest government corruption and widespread unemployment. Security forces used live ammunition and snipers on rooftops to kill demonstrators. On the same day in Karbala, protestors were attacked by masked men and 18 people were killed.
Iraq’s trade unions have been involved in the protests, which have been ongoing since 1 October 2019. The Conference of Iraqi Federations and Workers Unions, an alliance of national union bodies, issued a statement supporting the demands of the protesters and blaming the political parties and government for the poverty, unemployment and corruption that sparked the protest as well as condemning the government’s violent response.
On Saturday 2 November 2019, at least one person was killed and dozens more wounded in clashes between protestors and security forces near Tahrir Square. Riot police deployed along the bridges fired tear gas to keep back protesters.
At least 81 people were arrested throughout the protests.
Mass protests broke out in early July in Basra, the city in southern Iraq central to oil production, and soon spread to other provinces. Protests were sparked by high unemployment, poor public services and corruption. There is increasing outrage that huge amounts of oil wealth are extracted from the country while people live in poverty.
Protestors demanded that the government provide them with water, electricity, and other essential services
essential services
Services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population. Can include the hospital sector, electricity and water supply services, and air traffic control. Strikes can be restricted or even prohibited in essential services.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
, reject the current confessional political system and demand a representative national government.
However, the protests were brutally suppressed by the security forces, with 13 people killed and 81 arrested. The government cut off access to the Internet, which has made it difficult for Iraqi activists to spread news of the situation.
Iraqi unions, which were part of the protests, play a crucial role in the uprising against corruption and poor services that is sweeping Iraq. Following the brutal repression, unions issued a statement condemning violence against protestors and calling on the government to meet protestors’ demands.
In April 2018, strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
action by 30,000 Iraqi electricity workers employed on precarious contracts has led the government to concede and provide 150,000 public workers from all sectors with the same pension and social security rights as permanent workers.
The electricity workers took unprecedented militant action, suspending work and occupying electricity facilities and gas terminals to fight the growing use of temporary contracts in the electricity sector, and the exclusion of these workers from social security.
On 27 April, Hashmeya Alsaadawe, president of the Basra Trade Union Federation, explained that when the protests started, 100 workers were dismissed. Workers responded by increasing pressure on the government and occupying sites across the country. This had the desired effect, as all those dismissed were reinstated, and all precarious workers were promised social security.
The government had previously argued that public sector workers were not covered by social security law. However, in a statement released in early May 2018, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs confirmed that public sector workers are covered by the law. This brings legal protection to 150,000 workers who were not previously covered. This is a major victory for Iraqi workers and their unions. The government’s announcement in May confirmed the union victory.
Protests by over 200 engineers, technical staff, and other workers at Iraq’s state-run North Oil Company (NOC) in Kirkuk were simply ignored by NOC bosses. The workers were complaining that their salaries were being paid in old, ripped and unusable notes, and that they had not been paid their bonuses from 2013. When they staged a protest however, nobody came to speak to them, and they knew a strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
could easily cost them their jobs.
Public sector workers do not have organising
organising
The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one.
or collective bargaining
collective bargaining
The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.
See collective bargaining agreement
rights under Iraqi labour law and so there was no obligation for the bosses to negotiate with them, and no deadline for finding a settlement. The situation improved for some in February 2016 when the new labour law came into force, extending organising
organising
The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one.
and bargaining rights to public sector workers outside the civil service, but the new law still denies basic trade union rights to millions of blue-collar public sector workers, including those employed by the state in the oil and gas, port and railway, public road transportation and communication industries and state municipalities.
Cement workers in Iraq still struggled to enforce their rights, before the entry into force in February 2016 of the new labour law. In April 2015 some 350 workers at the Karbala cement plant signed a petition requesting representation in negotiations with management, although management had already refused a similar request by a group of workers in February. The cement workers also staged a rally to urge management to meet with a committee of workers to discuss improving safety and health conditions and other key issues.
Workers at the plant, owned by Iraqi government but operated by a private company, said that some had been unfairly penalised for asking for better wages and a safer work environment. One worker was transferred and another was being investigated.
Although the cement plant is a public sector factory, it receives loans from the International Finance Corp. (IFC) and IFC labour standards require respect for freedom of association
freedom of association
The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
.
Hassan Juma’a Awad, Chairman of the Federation of Oil Unions, was charged with organising
organising
The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one.
an entirely legitimate strike
strike
The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.
See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike
at the Southern Oil Company in March 2013. On 1 July 2013, he was acquitted after four months of trade union campaigning supported by international solidarity.
Under existing legislation, workers in the public sector, including the state-owned oil companies, are not allowed to form trade unions. Workers that do organise protests are threatened with arrest and relocation. Despite the threats, worker actions have taken place throughout the main oil producing regions of the south. The authorities forcibly relocate trade union leaders in the oil industry from their regular jobs in order to remove them from their members and sources of protest.
Eight Southern Oil Company workers have been summoned to the General Inspector’s Office in the Ministry of Oil in order for the Ministry to investigate their role in recent demonstrations in Basra, where workers engaged in a peaceful protest.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, governments have failed to put in place a legal and regulatory framework for overseeing trade union activities and continues to use repressive Saddam era regulations which effectively ban independent trade unions.
In 2010, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, had hinted that Article 150, a law dating back to the 1980s banning public sector workers from joining a union, would be repealed once the country’s electoral stalemate had been resolved. But the new government has instead placed further restrictions on union membership.
On 17 April, the Iraqi Cabinet issued two decrees withdrawing its recognition
recognition
The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union.
of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW) and its member trade unions, and instead appointed an unelected “Ministerial Preparatory Committee (MPC)” to take over all union structures and assets and oversee the upcoming trade union elections. These elections exclude public sector workers. The authorities also issued a ruling stating they would select the workers candidate to the ILO
International Labour Organization
A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.
See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights
Conference in June in contradiction with the ILO
International Labour Organization
A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.
See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights
constitution which requires member states to select a worker delegate in consultation with unions. After international pressure the Minister of Labour backed down on this plan.
Many workers are deprived of the right to organise due to the predominance of the public sector in Iraq, and the fact that public sector workers are barred from trade unions. Sectors like banking, insurance, oil and others are overwhelmingly state-owned. Even industrial factories are very often state-owned.
In March, trade union elections were to be held under the legal framework inherited from the regime of Saddam Hussein. “Law 52” prohibits workers in the public sector from forming or joining unions, and only six mainly private sector unions, all affiliated to the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), were allowed to participate. Other affiliates of the IFTU and those affiliated to other national trade union centres were excluded, as well as the three Northern Kurdish provinces. In addition, the controversial August 2005 Order 8750 freezes all trade union assets and financial accounts. The application of this order would only be re-assessed and possibly suspended after union elections are held, and only for those unions allowed to take part in the officially-recognised elections.
The only officially recognised trade union is the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW), created in September 2005 from the merger of the Iraqi Federation of Workers’ Trade Unions (IFTU) (previously the only one to be officially recognised), the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) and the General Federation of Iraqi Trade Unions (GFITU). However, this limits freedom of association
freedom of association
The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.
See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework
, as organisations such as the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) have been refused recognition
recognition
The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union.
.