April 29, 2026
We congratulate you, the workers and all wage earners, employed and retired, on International Workers' Day, the symbol of the unity and solidarity of the workers of the world, which falls on Ordibehesht 11th (Solar Calendar). Unity and solidarity and organizing in independent labor organizations guarantee your power to defend your rights and repel the unbridled aggression of the regime and capitalists. We invite you to fight the aggressive war of the United States and Israel and the internal warmongers.
On the 105th anniversary of the International Workers' Day in our country, we commemorate all the fighters of the labor movement who fought and struggled to save workers and wage earners from poverty, injustice, and dictatorship and who died in this way. We salute those who continue to fight in the current difficult conditions, especially the imprisoned fighters, and we strive for their freedom.
The working class and labor organizations have been continuously persecuted and suppressed in Iran for more than a century due to the domination of dictatorial regimes over the country. By banning labor organizations and murdering and imprisoning their leaders and activists, the regime constantly prevents workers from organizing and celebrating International Workers' Day, so that it can more easily exploit them and trample on their rights.
This year, although the motivation to hold protests on Labor Day is stronger than in previous years, the repression and war conditions prevailing in the country have made holding International Labor Day much more difficult than before. However, workers, labor parties, and organizations are trying to celebrate International Labor Day wherever they can, including through social and virtual media, and to put forward the demands of the working class.
This year, the people of our country and you, the workers, have gone through a year of even greater pain and suffering. By imposing two very heavy and costly wars, killing people, and destroying part of the economic, production, and service infrastructure, the American and Israeli aggressors have pushed our country back for years and made life more difficult, more expensive, and more insecure for our people than before.
After the 12-day war, the great democratic and peaceful movement of January was brutally and brutally slaughtered by the regime, provoked by Israel and America, royalist elements, and the regime's apparatus of repression and it became a pretext for establishing a kind of martial law and intensifying repression and executions in the country, and a pretext for starting a 40-day war, the purpose of which is still unclear.
Even now, a number of activists of independent organizations and many leaders and activists of trade unions and workers are in prison due to their trade union activities. It is important that we jointly demand their release and the thousands of political and civil prisoners who have fought for freedom and justice and are imprisoned in prisons lacking minimum facilities. We must intensify our efforts for their release and abolishing capital punishment.
The attack on your rights and livelihoods, working and retired workers, has continued unabated for years. Last year, despite the spread of daily protests, your struggle intensified before the US and Israeli aggression, and the regime and employers were able to intensify their aggression with the opportunity created by the war.
The war actually ended up being in favor of those who were always waiting for an opportunity to destroy your rights. A large number of workers, teachers, nurses and doctors, firefighters and rescue workers, school children and students were killed and injured as a result of the criminal war, and others were killed as a result of attacks on residential areas, hospitals, schools, city squares and their places of business.
Hundreds of thousands of people were made unemployed as a result of the bombing of towns, large and small industrial and service units, and the economic recession caused by the war. Economic growth reached minus 6 percent, the country's non-oil exports fell sharply, and the supply of raw materials for production was stopped. By blocking the internet alone, the regime suspended more than a million jobs and made internet business owners unemployed. The war also caused a decrease in goods and a surge in inflation, with prices rising to 60 percent and triple-digit inflation for food, increasing pressure on wages, salary earners, and the people.
At the same time, the government and employers have increased pressure on workers by refusing to increase wages and pensions. Of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, about 147,000 are eligible for unemployment benefits, many of whom are still waiting for their unemployment benefits to be established. Hundreds of thousands of workers and small business owners have no income other than meager subsidies. Wages and pensions are not paid on time, contracts are based on one month duration, employers often avoid paying workers' social security contributions, and approved housing benefits are not paid either.
The government is powerless and lacks a plan for the vast number of unemployed and to control the rapid increase in inflation and prices. The number of unemployed women, who often work for lower wages and are mostly not covered by labor laws, is higher than that of men and they are in more difficult conditions.
On the one hand, the government has eliminated most of the protection laws and wage benefits, frozen wages at one-third of the minimum cost of living, intensified the suppression of independent organizations, increased the retirement age and reduced pensions. It has also settled contractual and temporary work, limited the use of social insurance, and increased the workers’ share in health insurance coverage. On the other hand, by introducing successive economic shocks, eliminating subsidies, and cutting off the preferential currency for basic goods, it has caused a dramatic increase in prices, intensified inflation, and increased the cost of living, imposing an unbearable living pressure on the majority of the people and pushing millions of others below the poverty line.
Dear workers and wage earners, war threatens your rights and interests more than anything else. It destroys your workplaces and makes you unemployed, it creates obstacles to improving your livelihood and achieving your demands, it erodes your bargaining power, it kills, injures and impoverishes you, it strengthens oppression and tyranny and destroys security. Intensify your struggle against war and tyranny to establish peace, freedom and social justice.
In the past year, the aggression of right-wing and fascist forces in most countries of the world continued despite the defeats that some of them suffered in a number of countries, and their scope of growth also expanded to the countries of Northern Europe. The return of the Trumpists to power in America fueled a wave of right-wing movements and created gaps among global alignments, including among America’s Western allies, which is unprecedented in its turn. It has led to increased bullying, intimidation, aggression, racism, and expansionism, and has weakened democratic institutions in the United States and around the world. The Trump administration’s territorial claims to Greenland, Canada, the Gulf of Mexico, the Panama Canal, the blockade of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran, and the imposition of tariffs on various countries and the war against Iran with the support of Israel are some of the consequences of the Trumpists’ return. The spread of poverty and attacks on the rights and welfare of workers and ordinary people around the world, and the widening gap between the rich and ordinary people are other consequences of the global rise of rightism.
The Left Party of Iran defends and contributes to the workers' protest and struggle for freedom and union rights and social justice, wage increases, improved livelihoods, job security, the right to organize and strike, adequate unemployment insurance during unemployment, stable employment contracts, social security and a labor law that ensures and guarantees your rights, the struggle to eliminate gender discrimination and equal rights for women and men, and for equal rights for migrant workers and Iranian workers, and your struggle against the regime's neoliberal policies, monetization of education and privatization of the health and education sectors.
Your victory and success require an organized struggle for democracy and freedom, along with union demands, and active alignment around common demands with other social and progressive groups and movements. Dictatorship and war are two major obstacles to gaining union rights and the right to organize. Without dismantling the framework of war and tyranny, the situation of workers will worsen day by day. In any way you can, take advantage of the opportunity of Labor Day to express your demands and strengthen solidarity with each other, raise your cry against poverty, tyranny, war, and oppression. Form cooperation and organizing committees to advance your demands and help each other.
Political-Executive Board of the Left Party of Iran
April 29, 2026
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