January 19, 2017
To Whom It May Concern:
On behalf of the nearly 140,000 members of the Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, I write to stand in solidarity with the working people of Iran, where political unrest is standing in the way of ordinary citizens’ rights to organize and fight back against tyranny, oppression and unemployment.
Here in the United States, we are shocked and appalled to learn of the conditions facing workers in Iran, and the crackdown on protests by people in power. Working people in Iran have been dreaming of a better life for four decades, but today ordinary people often have to work two or three jobs simply to survive. As trade unionists, we will always support our brothers and sisters in their populist struggle to bring a voice to the masses.
Make no mistake: your comrades in the U.S. support your efforts to protest poverty, inflation, and unemployment, and we stand by Iranian teachers, students, nurses and all other levels of the workers. In our country, we fight large, wealthy corporations. And we’ve learned that in order to fightback against any entity that plunders and loots social wealth – be it a company or your own government – you must rally your allies and leverage your power.
The trade union movement has long stood as the standard bearers for a free and civilized society, and in the vein, we reject soundly your government’s effort to steal from its citizens, beat and oppress its workers, pay poverty-level wages, and use violence, lashes, prisons, executions, and other forms of oppression. We call on the Iranian government to make massive, humane changes to its governing principles, and to hold responsible the criminals who are oppressing the working class of the country.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
In Solidarity,
John Samuelsen International President, Transport Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO