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Yet again the annual conference of the ILO is hosting the Islamic Republic of Iran. The 101st conference is convening with the Islamic Republic as a signatory member to the Conventions 87 and 98, on the freedom of association, right to strike and collective bargaining. The fact that the Islamic Republic does not recognise either of the two conventions does not bother the ILO at all; nor does it have any bearing on the ILO’s acceptance of the delegations of the Islamic Republic and its puppet workers’ representatives at its annual conference.

The whole world is aware of the prohibition of the basic rights to association, strike and collective bargaining in Iran, and that dozens of workers’ representatives are presently imprisoned in Iran for this very reason. The role of the Islamic Republic’s institutions at workplaces in imposition of the repressive conditions in Iran is, and has been, common knowledge internationally. Workers in Iran are penalised for the most basic internally recognised rights in the 21 century.

None of these matter to the ILO. The ILO has decided to turn a blind eye and ignore the workers in Iran and accept the Islamic Republic's claim that the Islamic Councils, trade associations, and Islamic forum represent the workers in Iran.

To accept Iran as a member of the International Labour Organisation and embracing its delegation, despite protests from all the labour organisations in Iran and throughout the world, expresses nothing but the hypocrisy and double standards of the ILO. No unbiased observer accepts the excuses of lack of information or existing limitations of ILO as an organisation any more. It is far too evident that the politics and viewpoints that rule in the ILO determine its approach to its individual members. It is the international politics and interests, and not the rights of workers and signatures to the conventions of ILO that determine the policies of the ILO. Workers in Iran and across the world view the ILO’s recognition of the jailors of workers as workers’ representatives to be a clear display of the extent of the brotherhood of the ILO with the Islamic Republic in repression of workers in Iran.
On 6 June, we, along with a number of other Iranian organisations, five French unions, … will be protesting against the ILO and its recognition of the Islamic Republic’s puppet workers’ delegation in Geneva. We demand an end to the ILO - Islamic Republic pact.