Iraqi union leader urges opposition to oil law

A proposed law regulating Iraq's oil industry would foster US "hegemony" over the world's third largest oil reserves and Iraqi oil workers are determined to oppose it, an Iraqi union leader said on June 18. Faleh Abood Umara, general secretary of the Southern Oil Company Union and the Iraqi Federation of Oil Workers' Unions, was speaking in New York as part of a US tour to press for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq. Umara said the proposed law amounted to "a raid by the international oil cartel" and he said unions representing thousands of workers in the industry would take strong measures to oppose it, including strikes if necessary. International firms are waiting for an energy law to regulate how the oil wealth would be distributed before they start pumping money into the country, where the oil industry was crippled by a decade of sanctions even before the war. "We think the proposed oil law doesn't serve the interests of the Iraqi people at all," Umara told a news conference in New York. "It emphasizes or confirms American hegemony over Iraqi oil fields." He said the proposed law favored foreign oil companies at the expense of Iraqi workers and would not guarantee enough of a share of the revenues to the Iraqi state. The law was endorsed by the cabinet in February and was due to be passed by the parliament in May, but political wrangling has continued. Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani said in late May he expected it to be passed in the coming two months. Umara said a key demand that sparked a strike earlier this month by oil workers in southern Iraq was to delay adoption of the oil law and renegotiate its terms.