FBU features large in new book on Iraqi trade unions

A new book has been published by the TUC as a tribute to murdered Iraqi trade union leader Hadi Saleh. It provides a wealth of information on Iraq's democratic trade union and labour movement - past and present - while also detailing international solidarity today. The FBU features prominently in the publication. Below is an extract from the book:

When he delivered a large container of essential fire fighting equipment to the IFTU in April 2004, Brian Joyce was making good a promise made on behalf of the UK Fire Brigades Union.  In October 2003, an FBU delegation had been appalled to discover their Iraqi colleagues tackling blazes wearing nothing but sandals and moth eaten boiler suits.  One firefighter they met had lost an eye, and most displayed horrific and easily preventable burns.  Before he left, Brian made a simple promise: “I will do what I can to help you.  I WILL be back.”

Brian, with Dave Green, a member of the FBU executive council, began to write to every FBU region in the country to ask what they could donate to their Iraqi comrades to help them save lives while reducing the risk to their own.  By January 2004, over 600 ‘fire kits’ (boots, leggings, tunic and helmet) had been collected along with chemical suits and computers. 

The container was unloaded on the dusty forecourt of a building used by the Basra branch of the IFTU with a great sense of relief that the life saving equipment made in from the port in Umm Qasr, Iraqi firefighters warmly greeted Brian.  One of them showed the burns on his legs sustained whilst attacking an oil fire.  For many present the gratitude was mixed with disbelief that Brian had travelled all the way from Bristol to honour a promise.

In October 2003, firefighters were scandalously denied the right to join a union by the 1987 Labour laws of Saddam Hussein.  Now, with the help of the IFTU, firefighters have their own union and are voting for their representatives for the first time in three decades.

The FBU have shown what is possible if unions concentrate on making their solidarity with Iraq’s new trade unions practical, as well as symbolic.

Buy
Hadi never died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi trade unions
at www.tuc.org.uk/publications/viewPub.cfm?frmPubID=479
- profits go to the TUC Aid for Iraq Appeal.
Or donate direct online at www.tuc.org.uk/iraqappeal