200,000 Iranian workers unpaid for months

The peninsula online, 13 October 2006 :

Quote :

TEHRAN • About 200,000 Iranian workers have not received their salaries for months, the head of the official labour union was quoted as saying in the press yesterday.

“Close to 200,000 workers in 500 factories have not received any salary for months,” said Alireza Mahjoub, the secretary general of Iran’s House of Labour.

“Some of these workers have been waiting for their wages for about 50 months,” said Mahjoub, who is also a member of parliament.

“The parliament should consider the delayed payments in the (upcoming) additional budget bill,” he said.

According to Mahjoub, some 18.5 percent of Iran’s 70 million population live under the poverty line.

The Tehran MP also expressed concern over the high inflation rate during the past few months, describing the rising prices as the “the root of the current economic problems.”

In the past few weeks, Iranian officials have denied inflation is rising, putting the rate at about 10 percent, even though staple items have become more expensive in markets and unofficial sources estimate the figure to have reached at least 20 percent.

The Iranian House of Labor is a "union" organised by the mollah regime itself (something like the official "unions" in the stalinist countrys), so that it's possible that the data is not true, that more workers are unpaid. Also, that the bureaucrats paid by the regime are speaking about this case could show how bad is the situation of the working class in Iran, and maybe also how angry can be the workers there.