10-05-06, 9:03 am
Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson London, Trade Unions Congress, 2006
Despite the fact that Iraq is foremost in our thoughts, the condition and struggles of Iraqi workers remain the least discussed aspects of life in that country. Few people outside the Arab world know that the Iraqi working class has been one of the best organized, most politically engaged working classes in that region. As Hadi Never Died by Abdullah Muhsin and Alan Johnson relates, Iraqi workers have been at the forefront of their country’s history from its independence struggle to the battle against the Saddam Hussein dictatorship and now the continued occupation of Iraq.
The focus of the book is on the life of Iraqi trade union and Communist Party leader Hadi Saleh. Saleh was born in the southern town of Nasiriyyah one year after a key moment in Iraqi history called Al-Wathbah, or the leap, an uprising of workers and their allies against British imperial control. In January 1948, thousands of students and railway workers marched in Baghdad. Though government police murdered hundreds, the uprising forced the Prime Minister into exile to England. Strikes in the port city of Basra just weeks later also nearly brought the British-backed monarchy to its knees. Within ten years, another uprising of hundreds of thousands of people in Baghdad and other cities brought an end to the monarchy and to British control. The leading political forces in this movement for independence were the Iraqi working class led by its unions and the Iraqi Communist Party.
Subsequent power struggles among military leaders ultimately led to the rise of the Ba’ath Party by the late 1960s. To consolidate its power, Ba’ath Party leaders ordered the arrest of thousands of potential political opponents, including communists and independent trade union activists. Among those arrested was Hadi Saleh, a union printer and Communist Party activist, then only 20 years old. Along with many comrades and friends, Saleh was tortured at the Qassr al-Nihayah prison and sentenced to death. With so many trade unionists and political activists out of the way, the main trade union, the General Federation of Trade Unions 'had been converted into a ‘yellow’ trade union, a transmission belt shoving Ba’athist government and management commands down the workers’ throats.' By the time Saddam Hussein seized power in the late 1970s, the trade unions had become a means for the government to spy on workers and to conscript them into military service.
But WDTUM’s activities were not confined to the international scene. In 1984, it helped organize a strike of 4,000 tobacco workers in Iraqi Kurdistan. In 1987, WDTUM in Kurdistan publicly demonstrated against a chemical attack ordered by the regime at Sheikh Wesana that killed many people. After the protest, government police selected 23 people it claimed were leaders of the protest and summarily executed them. WDTUM activists, at great personal risk, organized to bring down the Saddam Hussein regime throughout its 24-year history.
In 2003, WDTUM activists marched against the Bush administration’s planned invasion of Iraq, 'conscious that the victims would be once again Iraqi workers and innocent civilians.' April 2003 saw the collapse of the regime and Saleh’s return to his home country. Within weeks, Saleh and other WDTUM leaders prepared to launch a new democratic trade union movement. They issued an appeal to Iraqi workers to 'unite, and speak with one voice, so as to serve Iraqi working people.'
Again the Iraqi working class sought to both organize workers to improve their lives and work conditions and to be at the forefront of rebuilding their country along democratic lines. On May 16, 2003 several hundred trade union leaders, including Saleh, met in a Baghdad trade union office and formed the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). Saleh was chosen as a member of the executive committee and assigned the role of international secretary.
Harassed by both supporters of the regime and the occupation forces, the IFTU organized about 200,000 workers by 2004 in the worst of conditions. Amid economic collapse, a security and political vacuum, and under semi-legal status, IFTU quickly became a leading force in Iraq. In December 2004, IFTU presented broad demands which it saw as key to Iraq’s reconstruction: an end to the occupation, building democracy, a halt to privatization, establishment of social welfare, women’s equality, scrapping anti-union laws, implementation of basic workers’ rights, and a prohibition of forced and child labor.
Less than four weeks later, on January 4, 2005, Hadi Saleh was murdered in his home in Baghdad. His comrades believe that supporters of the Saddam Hussein regime murdered him out of revenge; Saleh had long been on their hit lists. The method of his execution was that commonly used by the former regime’s security forces. Saleh was survived by his wife, two children, and several grandchildren.
Saleh’s murder prompted an enormous outcry by trade union leaders around the world. AFL-CIO president John Sweeney praised Saleh for his dedication to the movement saying, 'He will be sorely missed by all of us who have met him and by the workers for whom he valiantly fought.'
This book’s short but valuable contribution to the history of the Iraqi working class as embodied in the life of Hadi Saleh helps bring a new view of Iraq. Comrade Saleh represented well the still worthwhile slogan, 'workers of the world, unite.' This book is worth careful consideration by those people in the world’s peace and labor movements who have expressed serious interest in the destiny of Iraq.
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at
