The Unmaking of the Iranian Working Class since the 1990s

Abstract

This chapter tries to answer this question: historically speaking, what transformed the Iranian workers into being absolutely disorganized without sensible individual and collective bargaining power since 1990s? In doing so, this chapter will exclusively focus on the structural conditions of impossibility, explaining how some trends, economic policies, and political attitudes have contributed in paralyzing the workers’ political action via weakening their associational power and bargaining power throughout the post-Iraq–Iran war era. This chapter aims at explaining that if the social justice in Iranian scene has substantially deteriorated since 1990s, it is partly because the working and living conditions of the workers have worsened, which in turn have their origins in their decreasing individual and collective bargaining powers.