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Elizabeth BishopIranThe labor movement and trade unions in Iran
began in the early twentieth century. They have not
been homogeneous institutions; some have had
grassroots support and some have been agents of
the state. They survived long periods of authoritar-
ian regimes. At different historical periods their
actions have confirmed a profound reactivation of
civil society (Bayat 1987, Ladjevardi 1985). How-
ever, they remained male dominated organizations.
In 2003, 30 percent of formal sector workers in
state enterprises and 6 percent of formal sector
workers in private enterprises were women. No-
tions of masculinity and femininity locate women
in unskilled and low paid work; they pay higher
taxes and receive lower levels of bonuses and other
entitlements. There are large numbers of women
unpaid workers and even paid workers in the agri-
culture and the informal sector in rural and urban
areas whose issues are not addressed by the male
dominated trade unions (Poya 1999, 83–98).
Historically women played important roles
within the labor movement. In 1930, a leading
member of the oil workers’ strike committee,
which organized the first strike against the Anglo-
Persian Oil Company, was a woman called Zahrà;
other details about her are not available. In the
1930s, women workers won their specific demands:
maternity leave and the right of mothers of new-
born babies to have paid time off to breast-feed
their babies in the factory during working hours.
In 1944, women workers established the Union
of Women Workers, alongside the United Central
Council of Workers Unions. In 1947, Raziyya Sha≠
bànì, a trade union activist, was arrested as the first
woman political prisoner from the labor movement
(Partuvi 2002).
In 1951, the oil workers’ strike led to the victory
of Mußaddiq’s nationalist government and oil
nationalization. This period ended with the 1953
CIA coup. In the 1960s and 1970s the dictatorial
regime controlled the trade union movement and
changed the term “trade unions” to “syndicates.”
Nevertheless, many workers remained militant and
class conscious. Women workers’ strikes have been
iran 669significant in the history of labor movement in Iran:
at the Shahnaz Factory in 1960 and 1962; the Ziba
Factory in 1971; the Pars Electric and Milli Shoe
Factories in 1974; and the Shahi Textile Factory
in 1976 (Partuvì2002). In February 1979, a grow-
ing revolutionary movement and a general strike
resulted in the collapse of the monarchy and the
establishment of the Islamic state.
Before 1979, cultural restrictions affected women’s
mobility and many families did not allow their
daughters and female members of their families to
join trade unions. But during and after the 1979
Revolution more women became active members
of shawràs, workers’ councils, which replaced the
syndicates of the pre-1979 period. Many women
workers in pharmaceutical, food, and textile indus-
tries were involved in the shawràs. They were
struggling to set up workplace nurseries, literacy
classes for women workers, and better health and
safety conditions at work. In this period women’s
activities raised gender consciousness. Women
were engaged in trade union activities as women.
This was significant in a number of ways. The
shawràswere under attack by the autocratic
Islamic state and both female and male workers
were struggling to save the shawràs. But male
workers were against female representation; they
believed that women should leave these activities to
men. For their part, women believed that they
should be represented in the shawràsas women
workers because they had specific demands. These
experiences, together with the imposition of™ijàb,
Islamic dress code, and sex segregation, originally
designed to marginalize women in the public sphere
of life, ironically opened up opportunities for many
women workers to participate in trade unions. In
the early 1990s, for the first time in Iran, Afsar-
mulùk Yasan, a woman activist, was elected as the
leader of the hairdressers’ shawrà(Poya 1999,
125–130).
However, studies on gender and trade unions in
Iran demonstrate that despite increase in women
workers’ activities in trade unions since the 1980s,
they have remained in a minority and have very lit-
tle voice at any of the decision-making levels. There
has been a continuing resistance by male trade
unionists to women’s participation in trade unions.
In most shawràs a woman serves as treasurer, but
their participation is limited when important deci-
sions are taken (âqàjànì2000, Ardalàn 1999,
Làhìjì1999).
Since the 1990s, a growing women’s movement
has challenged the patriarchal institutional do-
mains of the Islamic state. Women workers reacted
to male dominated trade unions by forming women’s