The labor movement in Iraq is fighting to stop a proposed “hydrocarbon law” that would turn over the lion’s share of their country’s oil reserves to major foreign oil companies. U.S. Labor Against the War is calling on U.S. unionists to help the Iraq´s unions.
The oil law was drafted at the direction of eight major multinational oil companies, the Bush administration, the British government, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the summer of 2006. Members of the Iraqi parliament, who are being told to pass the bill, did not see it until March, after it was endorsed by the Iraqi cabinet, which was pressured to do so by the Bush administration and IMF.
The law as proposed would enable foreign oil companies to gain control Iraq’s undeveloped oil reserves – estimated to be two-thirds of Iraqi oil – for 30 years or longer, with most of the profits (as much as 87.5 percent) going to those companies.
Iraqi unionists have been speaking and organizing against this proposed law for months. Leaders from five major Iraqi labor federations met in Amman, Jordan last December, to analyze and discuss the draft oil law. In a joint statement they declared, “Iraqi public opinion strongly opposes the handing of authority and control over the oil to foreign companies, that aim to make big profits at the expense of the people. They aim to rob Iraq’s national wealth by virtue of unfair, long term oil contracts that undermine the sovereignty of the state and the dignity of the Iraqi people.”
IRAQ UNIONS VS. BIG OIL
Under the proposed oil law, big oil companies would be awarded “production-sharing agreements.” These are very different from the service contracts under which oil companies operate in other Middle East countries. Under a service contract, control over oil resources and profits remains exclusively with the country’s government. But with production-sharing agreements, Iraq would give up control over its oil, and much of its national independence, to oil executives. Foreign oil companies could repatriate (take home) all the profits they make, reinvesting nothing in Iraq, and they would likely be given seats on the “Oil and Gas Council” that would award contracts. In other words, the fox will be in charge of the henhouse.
There is a strong possibility that the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, and perhaps other unions, will go on strike to try to stop the oil law. If that happens, what would the U.S. military do? That’s a legitimate question, because in late February, U.S. and Iraqi troops twice raided the Baghdad offices of the General Federation of Iraqi Workers (GFIW.) UE President John Hovis wrote to the Iraqi embassy and the U.S. government at the time, protesting these attacks against a legitimate, democratic and non-violent labor union. It is widely suspected that the raids were an attempt to intimidate all Iraqi unions because of their active opposition to the proposed oil law.
USLAW CHALLENGES DEMOCRATS
Democrats in Congress passed a supplemental war funding bill, HR 1591, that calls on Pres. Bush to certify that the Iraq’s government is meeting certain “benchmarks” in order for full war funding to continue. Among those conditions the bill lists the enactment of “a broadly accepted hydro-carbon law that equitably shares oil revenues among all Iraqis.”
U.S. Labor Against the War is demanding that Congress remove that particular “benchmark” be removed. “Athough HR 1591 makes no explicit reference to it,” says USLAW in an “Open Letter” to antiwar members of Congress, “inclusion of this provision for all practical purposes puts the Congressional stamp of approval on privatization of the vast majority of Iraq’s undeveloped oil reserves.”
“Equal sharing” among the conflicted groups in Iraq sounds good. But the oil law giving most of Iraq’s oil wealth to private foreign oil companies is the only “hydrocarbon law” under consideration by Iraq’s parliament. So all the talk by U.S. politicians and news media about “equitable distribution of oil revenue” between Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions is really about “equitably sharing” the mere 12 or 13 percent of Iraqi oil revenues that would be left over after the big oil companies have fattened themselves.
USLAW is encouraging U.S. unions and union members to contact members of Congress, demanding that Congress stop pressuring the government of Iraq to hand over control of its oil to ExxonMobil, ChevronUnocal, Shell and BP.
WAR FOR OIL?
The Bush administration has often been criticized for invading Iraq with no postwar plan. But journalist Greg Palast reports, the Bush people did have a plan, a plan drafted in Houston months before the war by oil industry executives and consultants. That plan was to turn over Iraq’s oil reserves to the big oil companies – a plan now embodied in the draft Iraq oil law.
There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and no link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. So why did Bush drag us into this horrible war, and why does he refuse to get out? The struggle for control of Iraq’s oil may give us the answer.
You can find much more information on the Iraq oil privatization scheme, the fight of Iraqi unions to stop it, and how you can help, at the website of U.S. Labor Against the War, www.uslaboragainstwar.org .