PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
LABOUR RIGHTS IN IRAQ (6 December 2006)

That this House is concerned that Iraqi Ministers, through Decree 8750 of August 2005, have frozen the monies of unions, including those affiliated to the Iraqi Workers' Federation, leaving organisations which represent up to a million Iraqis and which are the bedrock of a non-sectarian civil society unable to organise and play a positive role both in the workplace and in wider society; fears that some may create sectarian client unions; urges the British Government to continue to make representations to the Iraqi government to lift Decree 8750 and the continuing ban, first introduced in 1987 by Saddam Hussein, on public sector trade union organisation; welcomes the continuing efforts of Labour Friends of Iraq to encourage moral and material solidarity with the new Iraqi labour movement; and backs the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in its efforts to encourage British unions and others to pledge monthly sums to fund Iraqi unions' basic running costs such as printing the Workers' Unity newspaper and to encourage people to send used mobile telephones and chargers to the TUC so that they may be used by Iraqi union organisers.

Sponsored by:
Mr David Anderson (Labour)