Iraq: unions press for labour law
According to Iraq Oil Report (4 August), the Ministry of Industry and Minerals has written a memo “advising” its employees to avoid unions. The move highlights how the consolidation of the Maliki government in Iraq, and of something approaching real government administration in the country, cuts two ways. The government is more assertive with the USA. It organised celebrations when US troops quit Iraq’s cities on 30 June. There was some fudging at the edges of that withdrawal, but the US troops have largely stayed out of the cities since, and are due to withdraw completely by December 2011...