Full Video of the Conference on YouTube
Speech by Salvatore Mara, Representative of the Italian Trade Union and Head of International Policy at the Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL)
Message from Stephen von Sychowski , President of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, a regional labour organization with 60,000 unionized workers
Message by Eric Lee: founding Editor the founding editor of LabourStart, the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement
Message from Kathy Nugent Workers’ Liberty
Message from Jesús Gallego García, Secretariat of International Policy from UGT ) General Union of Workers (with 960,000 members):
Translation in English
حتماً. در ادامه ترجمه انگلیسی را با لحن رسمی، سیاسی و مناسب برای قرائت در یک کنفرانس آوردهام:
Dear friends and comrades,
More than six months have passed since the beginning of the new military aggression by the United States and Israel against Iran—yet another example of the violation of international law, which has included the assassination of political leaders and the killing of thousands of Iranian civilians.
According to some estimates, the damage caused so far has exceeded $400 billion. As a result of this devastation, hundreds of thousands of women and men workers have lost their jobs.
At the same time, the United States has organized a naval blockade against Iran, preventing the entry and exit of goods and restricting the sale of oil. This crisis has affected every aspect of the country’s economic life, with the inflation rate reportedly reaching as high as 300 percent. The national currency has also lost so much of its value that there has been no comparable decline in more than 50 years.
But I would like to remind you that, even before the outbreak of this conflict, the Islamic Republic had brutally and violently suppressed popular protests against the violence and repression of the regime. People who had taken to the streets to protest the worsening conditions of their lives were violently suppressed, arrested, tortured, and killed in an atmosphere of fear and terror.
The Islamic Republic has closed the Strait of Hormuz, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of workers around the world have been affected by the closure of this vital economic route.
Since the beginning of this conflict, all the evidence has shown that this crisis cannot be resolved through military means. There is no alternative to negotiations if we are to bring it to an end.
Yet, under such circumstances, the advocates of war, as they have always done, are seeking to exploit the situation. Israel, on the one hand, is destroying a country and turning it into a state resembling Libya, Syria, Lebanon, and Afghanistan.
A powerful section of the Islamic Republic’s apparatus also seeks to use this situation to intensify the repression of its citizens and establish an increasingly undemocratic government. And the United States, as always, is playing the same role it has always played.
Under these circumstances, war paralyzes every effort by the democratic opposition to operate inside the country, as new obstacles are created every day, while people continue to be arrested, tortured, and killed.
There is only one way to end this war: to listen to the voices of the people of Iran—the workers and working people, the women and men workers of Iran.
The Iranian opposition that presents itself as monarchist is not the solution to this crisis either, because it seeks to restore a repressive and reactionary system that is incompatible with any democratic standards that we recognize.
Therefore, the only solution is to listen to the voices of democratic movements, the voices of Iran’s democratic political parties, and the voices of working women and men.
And for this reason, from here, we call for and advocate dialogue and peace as the only means of ending the destruction of a nation, the killing of hundreds of thousands of people, the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and the climate of fear and terror—whether imposed by one side or the other.
You have the full support of the General Union of Workers and Working Women and Men.
We stand with you, and we support your efforts and demands for peace, democracy, rights, and progress.
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