Empty tables revive workers' protests in Iranian streets
With the
continuing economic deterioration suffered by Iranian society, the phenomenon
of “empty tables” has spread, revealing the extent of the deterioration of
living conditions, which has caused continuous protests since 2018, especially
after the US sanctions imposed by Washington in the same year after withdrawing
from the nuclear agreement doubled the economic decline.
Empty
tables
In
conjunction with the indirect negotiations in Vienna between Iran and
Washington and Iran's adherence to its demands, labor protests were renewed
again in many Iranian cities, where steel retirees in Kermanshah, Tehran, Ahvaz
and Arak organized protests to meet their demands.
Social
security retirees gathered in Kermanshah due to poor living conditions and
other demands, and the protesters demonstrated their poor living conditions by
offering “empty tables,” in a message to the regime about the extent of their
living deterioration and their inability to provide for their daily bread.
The circle
of protests is widening, as it included the strike of oil industry workers
nationwide, while livestock farmers also organized protests in several cities
in Iran, in addition to student protests at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad
after two suicide attempts by a student amid the silence and indifference of
regime officials.
Ongoing
protests
Teachers'
protests continue in light of the regime ignoring their demands, as the
teachers' protests began last week, and the Coordinating Council of Iranian
Teachers' Unions called on all teachers to protest in order to meet their
demands.
The protests
spread across Iran, where teachers demanded their rights, stressing the need to
implement the teacher classification bill approved by the Iranian parliament’s
education committee, which calls for raising teachers’ salaries to at least 80%
of the salaries of university faculty members. But Iranian officials say there
is not enough funding to implement such a plan.
The teachers
criticized the regime's refusal to raise their salaries at a time when the
Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) budget increased by 2.5 times, or more than 90,000
billion tomans, representing an increase of 240 percent over the previous year,
in addition to allocating about €1 billion, or more than 30,000 billion tomans,
to the IRGC solely for exporting projects of terrorism, missiles and the like,
while the budget for education increased by only 14% to reach 130,000 billion
tomans.
