Six members of Tehran’s bus workers’ union executive arrested as workers call for a strike

Six members of Tehran’s bus workers’ union executive arrested as workers call for a strike
Labour News Network

As we reported, following the call for a strike for this Saturday (28 Jan), six members of the executive of the bus workers’ union were summoned to appear before court on Thursday. The six arrived at the court and were interrogated until this evening. However, they were then detained.

Including Mansoor Ossanlou, the head of the union, who has been in prison for over a month, a total of 7 members of the executive of the bus workers’ union are now in prison. They are:

Mansoor Ossanlou, Ebrahim Madadi, Davoud Razavi, Saeed Torabian, Mansoor Hayat Gheibi, Abdolreza Tarazi and Ali Zadeh Hossein

Several other members of the union executive have also been summoned, but they have refused to comply.

Meanwhile in an interview this evening with the state broadcaster IRNA, Tehran’s Mayor Ghalibaf described the bus workers’ union as ‘illegal’, and indirectly threatened to prevent the strike from taking place. The state radio too described the workers as ‘counter-revolutionaries’ and ‘saboteurs’. The government is also spreading rumours that 10,000 vigilante state-hired mob known as Baseej are preparing to break the strike.

These workers are in prison because they have dared to set up a union to unite the workers and defend their rights. Their crime is to demand decent pay, reinstatement of sacked workers and introduction of collectively negotiated contracts.

Continued...