Jane Ashworth examines the claims of the FWCUI

The Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) report, 'now a new wave of heroic strikes have swept industries like the Textile in the city of Kut, in which the workers were suppressed and shot at by the authorities, also the strike of Electricity Power Station in Nasriyah, the chemical, and plastic industry, and soft drink factory workers in Baghdad, and in Basra Electricity Power Station.' They also report that the workers 'managed to impose their demands on the US appointed Interim Government'

So far so good. The reasonable reader can assume the battle for the de facto right to organise is going well. But the article starts to loose credibility with this next paragraph, 'the FWCUI has become the only organization trusted by the (striking) workers to negotiate on their behalf and strengthen their position through it.' But again, the reasonable reader might lend the benefit of the doubt and reckon the FWCUI have a few good people who know how to lead a strike. Knowing the FWCUI are very small, you might think that they were lucky to be so well positioned in this wave of militancy.

However, the end of the article confirms growing doubts with this appeal to readers to '… please participate in strengthening the strikes of workers and their struggle by supporting the only true representative of the workers in Iraq Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI).'

In just a few lines we have travelled from supporting the strikers to declaring the FWCUI as 'the only true representatives of the workers'. And such self-aggrandisement is enough to make the same reasonable reader run away because we have been through this before. When Steve Biko, from the Black Consciousness Movement, was perhaps the best known of the younger South African militants and non-ANC unions were leading strikes in the mines, the ANC nonsensically insisted it was the sole legitimate voice of progressive South Africans. That was the practical example of the more basic truth: no-one speaks for everyone.

Every working class is fragmented; every political situation provokes many responses. And so it is with Iraq.

Its right to support these strikers who so ever they lean on for advice and leadership. But it’s quite another to willingly line up behind an organisation which claims the impossible.