The labor movement in Iraq is connected to the developments that have happened since the late 19th   century, particularly in relation to Ottomans economic reforms to the agricultural land system that began in the Ottoman Empire, and the Iraqi colonies belonging to the Ottoman Empire.

And the role of British colonialism, these Ottoman reforms caused material damages to the Iraqi farmers, as a result the agricultural lands were withdrawn from the farmers and given to the big feudal lords to own those lands.

due to the changes that Iraqi society witnessed, especially after the merge of the Iraqi economy into the British capitalist economy since the late 19th century also the expansion of the import and export through the railways ) train rails( built by colonialism, and the conquest of British goods  into the Iraqi market had a keen impact on changing the nature of the Iraqi economy from a local economy based on agricultural and skilled handicraft (hand working) production to provide the local need into the  “open market economy” that depends on imports and consumption of industrial goods.

So, it wasn’t strange that communist or leftist workers were interested in organizing the demands of workers and skilled handicraft who tried to organize themselves into communities and parties that work for their unity, demand their rights especially their right to: freedom, trade union organization, the enact of laws and legislation that protect their interests and secure their future in the political decision-making of their class. During the 1^st  World War, the workers suffered from  hard living conditions, there was no limit working hours, women and children were  join their parents in the work of skilled handicraft and farmers, in very difficult conditions, like slavery and free labor.

There is no official Statistics for the number of industrial workers in the projects of the British and Ottoman occupation in that period, but it was estimated at 100 thousand workers out of the population of Iraq, which is about 2-4 million people.

Certainly, workers as a class were affected by the British colonialism, the colonialism didn’t fail to exploit Iraqi workers in the most terrible way, until the worker had to sign a commitment confirming that they don’t mind to being subjected to British military law and executions as of the date of using them in the colonialism  projects  especially in the railways, blacksmithing, cleaning, driving cars, making bricks and boats,  although wages were almost nothing , this didn’t prevent the workers from having an anti-British class and patriotic feeling.

The historical testimonies that spread around by the Iraqi left articles shows the  anti-occupation movements in “Basra” by port workers in 1916 and workers in “Amara city southern Iraq”, the number of exceeded workers is 450 because left their jobs. The colonialism authorities shot them and captured dozens of them in prison.Also it wasn’t surprising that the Iraqi Land Lords or the feudal lords, cooperated with the occupiers in suppressing the workers and helping the occupying authorities to return the remaining workers to work by force because their economic interests were connected to the projects of the British occupation.

All these circumstances helped the Iraqi workers to realize their reality and feel their need to demonstrate and demand their rights. This is an important point in the history of the Iraqi labor movement. The labor movement grew in the early thirties of the last century and achieved important victories in strikes, establishing unions and unifying the ranks of workers. However, this active movement was working in difficult conditions and a number of union leaders were expelled from their jobs, imprisonment or exile to remote places out of Iraq.

The struggle of the Iraqi working class forced the governments, owners of institutions and monopolies to submit to issue labor legislation and to agree to the establishment of trade unions and labor communities. The labor movement did a series of strikes and participated in demonstrations and mass uprisings. The strikes included the most important institutions and projects, including British military bases, railways, oil, electricity and port.

Although the issuance of Labor Law No. 72 of 1936 took place after procrastination, but it was the first legislation issued in Iraq and remained valid until the beginning of 1958, when new legislation No. 1 of 1958 was issued. It remained frozen until the July 14, 1958 revolution in which workers achieved some victories for their class despite the national content of the revolution. What we can say is that the labor movement accompanied the national movement at that time against British colonialism, the two achieved some labor and national goals, most important  the recognition of this class and drawing attention to it as a social force with its economic, social and political potential. The new national government authority led by “Abdul Karim Qassem” and the military class after the July 14, 1958 revolution couldn’t ignore the workers’ demands, including the issuance of labor laws, and liberating laws for women.

Although the national ministerial projects included a lot of issues to workers and the working class however, what was implemented from these legislations and laws didn’t take its way to implementation later because of the distraction of the working class with national ideas and the emergence of new nationalist extremist parties such as the “Baath Party”, that we still suffer from its consequences so far.

#WAS

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