Iran : Myths and Realities
By Azar Majedi
Iran premieres international news. What has led to mass protests ? How the situation has changed so dramatically in a week ? What people want ? What the protests will become ? These questions are repeated over and over on all TV channels and in the press.. Various political analysts and European or American academics of Iranian origin, with varying degrees of allegiance to the so-called reformist camp, are invited to shed light on the situation. All of these commentators share the following assumption : "The people of Iran do not want the revolution". Over there, they mean that the population does not want to throw the Islamic regime overboard. They say the people want an evolution, a gradual change. They insist that people want minor changes in the political system, just a little more freedom. They say they are protesting against Ahmadinejad and the rigged election, not against the islamic regime. So, that if Mousavi becomes president, everything becomes normal.
In recent years, the garment industry in Montreal is undergoing substantial changes. From the perspective of neoliberal globalization, Companies borrow more and more the way of relocation : factories are closed here and the machines shipped in the South, where labor, underpaid, costs less. The dismissed workers, On the other hand, often find themselves on the carpet… It happened to Peerless, The trap, Main Knitting. At Golden Brand – where Moores Inc clothes are made. - the 540 laid-off workers got 3,5 million dollars in compensation thanks to pressure from Unite Here, their union. À l’Amour Inc., on the other hand, laid-off workers, mostly immigrant women, were unable to benefit from the support of theirs, a “boutique union” imposed by the employers in order to turn the organizational desires of its employees to its advantage. On another side, an organization truly run by and for its members would have enabled workers to save, in the absence of their employment, their dignity and some furniture.
In the last twenty years we have seen the generalization of precarious working conditions, flexible schedules and broken jobs, on call and on terms less interesting. This transformation of work and jobs corresponds to the employers' desire to bring workers to their knees and restore their profits by strengthening wage exploitation. The current economic crisis will further worsen the precariousness of employment and the flexibility of the workforce..