In May 2018, fifteen employees of the Heavy Equipment Production Company (HEPCO) were arrested for taking part in a strike to protest wage arrears, a decline in occupational safety and uncertainty surrounding continued production. Since May 2018, hundreds of HEPCO plant workers have gone on at least two strikes demanding months of unpaid wages. In October 2018, the Criminal Court of Arak sentenced each of the workers to between a year and two and a half years’ in prison and 74 lashes for “disrupting public order’ and ‘instigating workers via the internet to demonstrate and riot”.
HEPCO, a lucrative industrial complex founded before the Islamic Revolution, was privatised last year. Labour rights activists say that immediately following the privatisation, the new private owners sacked thousands of workers and many employees lost their health insurance and pension benefits.
Past workers’ protests at the HEPCO complex have been met with violence. According to media reports and social media posts, on 19 September 2017, anti-riot police attacked HEPCO and another recently privatised industrial complex in Arak, Azarab, and arrested several protesters. Some of the anti-riot forces drove through the protesters on motorbikes while firing tear gas and beating them with sticks.
