On February 12th, the Iranian television announced car production performances in the Islamic Republic, jumped by 40% in less than a year. Those were the days of the Fourth Automotive Industry International Conference, held in Tehran. Citroën, Peugeot, Scania and Renault participated, among other big brands from Turkey, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan. Moazzami Mansour, head of the Industrial Development and Renovation Organization, pledged even better numbers and mentioned more than a million cars produced by the end of March.
In the year zero of Tehran, the post-sanctions era, making agreements with foreign companies is de facto a “golden opportunity.” But what does it really mean for the Iranians?
Beyond numbers
In a country where the population reaches almost 80 million inhabitants and the automotive industry represents 10% of GDP – just after oil industry– (Iran is the eighteenth in the world), the sector is betting on a new future. This means being back into the international arena and giving hopes to the domestic market. Left behind protectionist policies of Ahmadinejad’s era, for the Iranian working class it is a job opportunity, because new productions on site are being considered.
In January 2016, when the Agreement between the 5 + 1 countries, the EU and Iranhas been implemented and the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the United Nations(the United States were the first to start) against the Islamic Republic were lifted, Carlos Ghosn, Renault-Nissan chief, said that the Iranian market is “Iran is a very promising market, today it’s more than one million cars, it has the potential to go to 1.5 or 2 million”. He also added: “We are ready to go, but we want to go in a way which is sustainable” .A few days later the deputy minister of Industry, Mohsen Salehi-Niya, specified that there would be no reluctance on accepting investments even from US companies. The preconditions are “mutual cooperation, creation and expansion of industrial units, investments, creation of platforms and developing them, promoting [Iran’s] domestic industries and using the capabilities of domestic parts producers”.
Twelve months later something is changing, after difficult years. Sanctions, in fact, had blocked longstanding agreements with several international companies, including Fiat. The most likely scenario, at least for Peugeot, seems to be a joint-venture with the first car manufacturer in the country, Iran Khodro, which was already a historical partner.
Workers at the center
The economic and political discourse is intertwined with workers’ real life, because they represent the main actors within Iranian factories today. In the short term, the new development projects may be oriented toward new jobs creation, which is critical in a context where unemployment rate stands at 11.8%.
However, it is less clear what new investments will bring in the daily existence of the working class in the long term: 1) in contractual terms (in an increasingly precarious panorama – especially since the mid-nineties) and 2) with respect to renegotiation of the space occupied in the public realm.
Between past and present
The recent history of Iran shows that the role of workers was crucial during the last months that h led to the success of the 1979 revolution. As historians, such as Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi, argued, “when the industrial workers finally joined the revolutionary coalition, their contribution was significant. Together with white-collar and professional employees, they closed down many essential services and industries and eventually paralyzed the state apparatus”.Long gone are the days when Ruhollah Khomeini declared to Tehran Radio microphones that “the government is dutybound to provide the means of labor and production for workers, farmers and laborers”because work had to be considered as a “religious duty”. Those were the years of the war with Iraq and the discourse of power aimed to incite the workers to produce for the Islamic Republic.
Today’s political narrative follows different patterns. The language used has changed and attracting foreign capital, e.g., has become a key issue, President Hassan Rouhani has clearly stated: “The future path of the Islamic Republic of Iran is the path of economic growth, non-oil exports, attracting domestic and foreign capital, and creating jobs for the educated”.
