5 May, 2008
The ICEM has filed a stern protest with the Iranian government over its use of harsh and unnecessary force to break up a tyre strike at Kian Tyre, near Chahardangeh just west of Tehran. The police force occurred 12 April when troops smashed factory gates and climbed walls to get at strikers.
Some 100 workers were brutalised with electric batons, and hauled off in police buses to incarceration, reportedly at Ahmad Abaad Mostofi police station. For the first 36 hours of detention, workers’ families had no news on those who were arrested.
Eventually, most of the 100 were released conditionally, but only after police interrogated them to determine the strike’s leaders. Reports say that at least ten are still being held, as are six firefighters who refused to disperse the strikers with hot-water cannons.
Workers at the factory employing 1,200 took strike action on 9 April because of non-payment of wages. They had not been paid since autumn 2007, with the exception of one month’s pay plus a US$120 New Year’s bonus.
Kian Tyre was established in 1958 as a joint venture with the American company B.F. Goodrich. In 1979, the enterprise became part of state-owned National Iranian Industries, and in 1994 it was sold to private Iranian owners. The plant had previously gone under the name Alborz Tire Mfg. Co.