Statement of the Tudeh Party of Iran:

We firmly supports the admirable struggle of the  strikingnurses in Iran

The Tudeh Party of Iran firmly supports the admirable struggle of the country's nurses

In recent weeks, nurses in various cities across the country have gone on strike to protest their dire working conditions. The strike, which began on 6 August, following the death of a 32-year-old nurse due to work-related stress and in protest against brutal exploitation, widespread discrimination, insults, summonses [before the authorities], security agency fabrications, and threats of dismissal by the authorities, initially began in Alborz Province and the cities of Karaj and Shiraz. It has since spread to the provinces of Yazd, Bushehr, and the cities of Isfahan, Ahvaz, Arak, Hamadan, Mashhad, Yasuj, Zanjan, and Tabriz.

According to the Secretary General of the Nurses' House [the nurses' representative association], "around 50 hospitals are involved in the strike."A fortnight on from the beginning of the strike, the Deputy Minister of Nursing in the Ministry of Health described the challenges in the healthcare sector, especially in nursing, as grave and "on the brink of boiling point and crisis."

In recent years, we have witnessed continuous protests by nurses in different parts of the country. The main demands of the nurses, which have the support of hundreds of thousands of their colleagues and from across the healthcare sector, include increased wages and their timely payment, the elimination of mandatory overtime, higher pay for voluntary overtime, full implementation of the grading law, and [official] classification/recognition of nursing as a strenuous and hazardous occupation.

A noteworthy aspect of the widespread nurses' strike is the solidarity expressed by teachers, retirees, project workers, temporary contract workers in the oil industry(particularly in the petrochemical sector), as well as students, which clearly indicates an understanding of the commonality of challenges in the struggle against the corrupt and oppressive regime, and the need for a united struggle of the working class that must be advanced through unity and coordination.

Today, not only is the livelihood and job security of hardworking nurses at stake, but the situation for retirees, teachers, workers in the oil sector as well as other production and service industries is also extremely critical. The vindictivetheocratic regime is incapable of solving these problems [properly and peaceably] and instead relies on repression, executions, and spreading fear in order to cling to power.

The unified strike of the nurses represents the spread of the labour movement and the working-class struggle at the current crossroads in the country. The level of organisation and solidarity in this growing movement must be consolidated and strengthened. The Tudeh Party of Iran, while condemning the repressive actions of the regime's security apparatus against nurses and other working-class people, firmly and unequivocally supports the struggle and strike of the country's nurses.

Tudeh Party of Iran,

24 August 2024

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