 Good evening and a warm welcome, another warm welcome to those of you who have joined us for the second lecture, the sequel to Professor Toulaj Atabaki's lectures as part of the Suas annual Comron Jam lectures in Iranian history. Those of you who were present at the talk yesterday evening witnessed a insightful and gripping account of the earlier years of the development of Iran's oil industry in terms of the formation, the discovery, the formation and developments of labor relations. The so-called developmental years and this second part focuses on the years of contradiction. So if you thought the topic last night was warm, you can expect some heat over the confrontation years, which takes us to the post-Second World War period and more recent years, something which I'm sure we can more readily identify with in terms of events. We have the room till nine o'clock, but I'm going to give Toulaj as much time as possible, which means the shortest welcome, and I'm going to retire to one of the seats to benefit from the visual display that is an integral part of his presentation, and then I'll join back here to have hopefully decent time for questions and answers because you would remember that we deferred these two tonight. So without further ado, let me ask you to welcome Professor Toulaj Atabaki to his second and final lecture. Well, as the Saloma Adyab, very good evening, and I'm again, I'm delighted to be here and very grateful to invitation of Professor Hakimi and my dear friends and as well as very awarded hospitality of Ms. Husking. I'm very grateful to the some of you who sent me since yesterday evening, messages and email, very kind of you. Thank you. I'm happy that you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed it, but although I'm a bit worried about this evening because yesterday evening was a distant past and it's very comfortable to talk about distant past when you come to the immediate past is a bit difficult because some of you were there and you have different narratives of what's happened. So it's a bit difficult, but take what I say is my reading, might be different from your reading, but you know with some degree of tolerance, we can stand each other. Again, I mean as I said yesterday is the way I approach the 70 years history of old is from social history perspective, approach is different from political, so the prioritization is different from my point of view and the accent I put on different preities different from political historians. So let's start with what happened. Right way when we Iran was invaded by allied forces, the Second World War in Iran. We covered the first period was the discovery of all 1908 and we covered it till the outbreak of the Second World War in Iran, not in Europe. And then now we start to the second part. For the workers in Iranian oil industry, the 1940s was a decade that began with the landing of allied forces in the old province of in August 1941, making Iran a bridge of victory to support the Soviet front and the 1940s witnessed the rebirth of labor and political activism, which finally culminated with the rise of nationalism, sealing the face, the fate of the Anglo-Iranian oil company after more than 40 years of power in Iran through nationalization of oil in 1951. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Iran adapted an official policy of neutrality and the Soviet for two years. This policy was respected for two years by both British and the Soviets. However, when the German began fighting on an eastern front, both these major parts changed their stance towards Iran. The changes in their policy was primarily an attempt to bolster the Soviet Union's defense efforts, which were on the verge of collapse. In comparison to other routes available for shipping supplies to the Soviet Union from San Francisco to Murmansk to Argankesk, the Persian Gulf Caucasus route was by far the most practical and convenient. Subsequently, on the pretext of inducing Raza Shah for having pro-German sympathies, the British and Soviet troops invaded Iran on 25 August 1941. During the first years of the war, the Anglo-Iranian oil company lost 46% of the number of ships carrying oil through Africa by the Cape of the Good Hope to Western Europe. The old and convenient route of Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea to Western Europe was closed by British Admiralty in August 1939, just before British declared war. The losses of oil tankers as well as the long African Sea route diminished the amount of production and export of Iranian oil. Such decline not only affected the Iranian government income from the oil revenue, but also made the Anglo-Iranian oil company to shrink their employees by 44% from 51,000 plus in August 1939 to 29,000 in August 1941, causing a massive redundancy in the province. The immediate economic outcome of the Allied occupation in Iran was high inflation. By 1945, the index of cost of living reached as high as 10 times that of the year preceding the outbreak of the war. Economic hardship caused considerable employment problems for the oil company. The wages paid by the British and particularly the United States armies in their affiliated services led many workers in the oil industry to quit the job and join these sectors for better pay. To stop the flow of workers, the Anglo-Iranian oil company did not have any option but to increase the minimum wages and it's quite incredible. They increased the minimum wages 100%. However, and moreover, to avoid additional increase in wages, the oil company signed a pact with the British and U.S. armies not to raise minimum wages in Huzestan. What was happening during the war as far as the employment and recruitment of the laborers concern was that during the war, the Anglo-Iranian oil company labor recruitment regulations were altered. In the post-World War I, due to pressure of the Iranian government, the oil company had to advertise the available position in the local as well as national papers. During the Second World War, the oil company decided to implement different practices. Every week on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, Monday morning, the company would select the workforce required from amongst the crowd of laborers gathered in front of the Anglo-Iranian oil company's labor office in Abadan, in Tehran, in Isfahan. Following the medical test, the recruited laborers were employed for an arbitrary probationary period at minimum wage level. During this period, which could last for months, the laborer had no access to health care or other welfare benefits, including food rationing, education, housing, if it was at all available. According to a report compiled by the International Labor Organization, ILO, in addition to workers directly employed by the Anglo-Iranian oil company, there were other workers whom the oil company assigned certain work on casual or seasonal basis. The casual workers were not considered part of the oil company's regular labor force and its number were never included in the oil company's official statistics. The casual workers were contract workers who worked on refinery sites responsible for the tank cleaning, painting, handling sulfur, road construction and maintenance work. In 1945, in addition to roughly 29,000 plus wage earners employed directly by the oil company in Abadan oil refinery, there were 7,000 contract workers increasing the total work force by some 23%. That was only in a refinery, 6,000 contract workers. For the oil field, during the same period, the figure was higher than this. There was almost 9,000 contract workers. In addition to 51,000, we had for the oil field, who were in a payroll of the company. The contract workers, a significant number of whom were Uzistani Arab from Arab ethnic background, never enjoyed the relative security of workers directly employed by the oil company. The contractor, the middleman, the contractor, paid the workers less than the legal minimum wage and bypassed the statutory regulation concerning the payment of the weekly rest days. The rate of overtime, holly David's pay and so on and so on. In addition to being paid less than minimum wages, contract workers were not allowed to benefit from the service provided by the oil company, such as purchasing subsidies good in the company stores. An outcome of such practices was that income of the contract workers were not able to manage the family life. Women laborers, I mean, beside the contract workers, women laborers were employed in a small number in medical services, in laundry and sanitation, and women workers were not in the industrial size. They received the minimum wage, still no sign of Friday pay or disability compensation, which the other workers enjoyed in this industry. So this is a discrimination, gender discrimination in Beijing. Living condition during the war was there were famine, inflation, and ever increasing cost of living made the living condition of the labouring poor intolerable during the war. The consumption of domestically produced food stock by the Allied forces, if not the primary cause, was a contributory cause to this famine. I'll give you just an example. Between 1941 to 1946, the supply of livestock throughout the country was dramatically curtailed. At one point, up to 1,000 sheep and goats were slaughtered daily in Ahvaaz field butchery, alone. Or in the north of the country, that was only for the British armies and U.S. armies there. And in the north, that was the situation was bad. In the north of the country, in 1942, the export of the Rajs to Soviet Union and the Soviet Red Army caused major grievances among the poor in Gilan and Mazandran. As a result, the country's major urban centre became the scene of daily protests, sometimes turning into violence. The most serious incident, if I may name, was Tehran in 1942, when 20 dead and 70 injured was the result. From the old province of Khuzestan, there were also reports of popular unrest in Ahvaaz, in Masjid-e-Suleiman and in Abadan, in protest of high cost of living. In British archive, there is a report by a manager of the oil company. And he says that the life in Abadan district, Bahman, she is too graceful to waste word paper and ink on describing it. According to the oil company general manager, the oil company housing policy was that no houses should be provided for an unskilled labour, which in Abadan compromised 36% of the total workforce. He admitted that the housing condition in the town of Abadan was deprobable. He refers to the case where he saw himself 60 people, men, women and children living in a room 11 by 5 metres. With mud floor, leaking roof, one door only and no sanitary management or water. That was Abadan during the war, according to the British sources. Another source is prison. Manucheh-e-Farmanyan, then the minister of finance, recalls his visit to Abadan in 1945, attesting that the workers live in a shanty town called Kaghazabad, Pippertown, without running water or electricity. In a report submitted to the Iranian government by Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1946, the company conceded that although the number of the employees in the oil industry increased sharply during the war, no measure were adapted to build decent shelter for the workers, they admit. In Abadan, with a population of 120,000 in 1946, almost 85% of them were employees of the oil company. There were only 5,600 houses for the oil workers. That was including the old employees, I should say. That was including the Braem and Bouvardes bungalows. The majority of salaried registered workers were wage contracted, and still they lived living in the tents and hoods in virtually uninhabitable districts. During the Second World War, in addition to the threat of famine and food shortages, Iranian were also faced to the perils of disease and epidemics as well. In 1942, taifas reached the Iranian northern province when the Polish soldiers and civilians evacuated arriving from the Soviet Union, and soon spread throughout the country, reaching Huzestan. The oil industry persisting to hospital in Abadan, with 350 beds, and Masjid Sholayman with 86, encountered the new disease along with the long-standing and more enduring ones such as Tacoma, Malaria, Triplosis and Plague. That was always there. The company Dental Service, now I'm coming every corner of the health. The company Dental Service was not competent either. Many of workers, employees, this is according to a report, says many of our labor have to go without their teeth because of lack of attention, since there are two or three dentists for about 40,000 labor and stuff, excluding families. All these reports, what was the daily life during the war in Abadan, then you come to conclusions saying that after 30 years since the discovery of oil in 1908, the absence of any single platform to arbitrate on behalf of labor, licensed the oil company to deal with the issue related to workers living and working condition on individual rather than collective basis. This also held for the issue pertaining to labor recruitment, wage, education, health care, housing and welfare. The company enjoyed the liberty of discharging workers without notice and without any right to appeal against unfair dismissals. Despite many indication that the birth of a new labor movement was on horizon, during this period the oil company's labor policy showed little to no indication of changing accordingly. So this brings me to now the birth of labor activism. It was on this platform, on this background that we see that labor activism comes. The workers and living condition as such explained the social roots of the movement concluded with the call of nationalization of oil. In 1946, we had a very, very large strikes in Abadan. I wrote the details of this strike in a chapter of my book. It's called Chronicles of a Klamathus Strike foretold. I borrowed this from Gabriel Garcia Marker's work. That strike could be avoided, but nobody did anything to avoid this strike. In the early hours of summer day, 14 July 1946, a strike broke out amongst the workers in Abadan oil refinery, which within hours spread throughout the province of Huzestan, engulfing the oil industry as a whole. During the 60 hours, it was held to general strike mobilize some 70,000 Iranian and Indian manual and clerical workers, and broke by a considerable margin the record of any labor walkout conveyed in Iranian history. Some 47 dead, 47 dead, and 170 injured. It was reported as the bloodiest labor protest in the Middle East labor history. July 1946, Abadan. The 60 hours general strike in 1946 aligned all Iranian and Indian employees of the oil company, workers as well as clerics behind the call for the tangible demand of wage increase, Friday pay, better housing, and improved medical service. The oil company partial compliance with these demands became a source of social capital for the Iranian labor movement and Iranian society at large, which had been less accustomed to the process and means whereby pressure and change might be exerted from below. Despite having endured 725 years of authoritarian modernization, when the agency of labor movement in tandem with the plurality of subaltern voices was systematically prevented from initiating reform and change, the latter found themselves empowered through the introduction of just one of the workers' demand to width demand of Friday pay. It was this new sense of empowerment and the capacity to effect change that would come to the fore and find itself embodied in the movement of nationalization of oil industry. The five years following the July strike of 1946 coincided with the movement for nationalization of Iranian oil industry, which finally was celebrated in March 1951. The political development in Iran in this period and its impact on the country's labor movement could be divided into two periods. The first period began with the fall of autonomous government of Azerbaijan in December 1946 and through the failed attempt on the life of Shah in February 1949, which turned to become the royalist coup d'etat against opposition and ended with the campaign for the 16th parliament in late 1949. The second period began with the campaign for the 16th parliament in October 1949 and through the ratification of nationalization of the Iranian oil on 20th March 1951 by both Iranian parliament. Oil was nationalized. The nationalization of the oil industry was not solely, this is my reading, the nationalization of Iranian oil was not solely the result of tenacious performance of some political elite as has been largely noted in the historiography of nationalization of Iranian oil, but also and equally the outcome of enduring pressure from below, chiefly by oil workers. Six months after the nationalization of the oil, when the oil bill was ratified by the both parliament on October 4, 1951, all European and majority of Indian labor's employees of Anglo-Iranian oil company left Abadan and Masjid Suleiman. Very interesting. We did something about the Indian workers yesterday, the community of Indian in Abadan, in Masjid Suleiman, who is not very interesting that some Indian employees of the Anglo-Iranian oil company petitioned to the Iranian parliament, to the Iranian parliament with a request to stay here after nationalization. And it says that you don't want to leave. The parliament responded favorably to this appeal. Although the exact number of Indian workers who remained in Iran is unknown, there must be few. And even today senior Abadanis can recall the presence of Indian workers' community in everyday life in the city of Abadan and other in cities in Housestan. The reason Abadan Indian community is still there was there before the outbreak of the war, I should say. After the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, this Indian community moved to Tehran and now they're leaving Tehran. Let's not talk about the post-nationalization. What was really the political milieu after the nationalization? The world coming out of the Second World War was characterized as the world of Cold War. New political realignments, economic and social reconstruction, chiefly through the agency of developmental state. United Nations called the post-war period and explicitly the 1960 as a decade of global and massive economic and political reforms. In a language term, the underdeveloped countries became member of developing wolf and posed to leap over a decade of economic stagnation and poverty. In Iran following the 1940s on to British colonial urban middle class, vibrant social protests and labor militancy, the Iranian oil was nationalized. However, the jubilance of the nationalization didn't last long and in the 1950s the country experienced one of the most arduous period of economic decline and political repression. Both the coup d'etat of 1953 and the nationalization of the management in oil industry in 1954 were the major architect of this repression and stagnation. A year after the coup in 1954, the Iranian oil participants, a consortium of oil companies were founded, they called it IOP, with the task of extracting, refining, exporting the Iranian oil. However, in practice the nationalization of the management in the Iranian oil industry became one of the major tasks of the concessions. British petroleum with 40% remained still the major player in Iranian oil industry, followed by Royal Dutch, 14%, Gulf oil, Stanford oil of New York, Texaco each for 8%. And they continued their activity not only in Huzestan but all over Iran, even in oil. Home does not have only oil but has got oil too. One of the immediate outcome of the August 1953 coup was the wide-ranging repression overriding every corner of political sphere in Iran. The return of the autocratic rule put a coercive end to the 12 years of practicing participatory politics. The years 1953 to 1960 were a barren period when the labour movement hit rock bottom. Compared to the wide national scale labour movement in the 1940s, in the post-1953 coups we see a fragmented provincial labour activities in some major labour intensive complexes and industry. By the end of 1950s only you can see something happening. For example, I can give a reference to the brick workers in southern Tehran. They had two strikes in 57 and 59. Vatan textile factory of Isfahan in 59. And the labour activism reached Abu Dhan and oil industry too. Only end of the 1950s. 57 and 59 we had two strikes there in this Huzestan. What is really significant with the labour activism of this period was that there was no cooperation between the labour movement and other guilds or political movement in this period. You don't see any more. Each of these movements followed their own path independent from and indifferent to other or others. The political movement's aim was, if I talk only the politics, the political movement's aim was to protest against the government which had seized power in the aftermath of the coup d'etat and against the repression which had practiced. The rule was to open a window of opportunity just wide enough to let a ray of light, allowing supportive anti-government movement to breathe easier and carry out their activities freely. This was political movement. But the labour movement was different story. The labour movement in contrast was indifferent to the turbulent political situation and remained focused on issues connected to ensuring the workers had enough money and bread. That's it. There were many factors here. I can give you one. For example, on the top, the reorganization of workforce in the Iranian oil industry, one of the major measures adapted by Iranian oil consortium. The consortium claiming that the Iranian oil industry is suffering from labour surplus labour. And the consortium persuaded a policy of labour redundancy of outsourcing labour. That was practiced late 1950s, early 60s. The drastic fall in the Iranian order even though by 55% at the end of the 50s paved the way for a rampant economic crisis. Causing social grievances among industry workers as well as labouring poor. Moreover, 30% fall of the Iranian oil price in early 1960 brought the country to the age of total economic collapse. The Iranian government's commitment on negotiation with the consortium oil company to increase or at least sustain the country's oil revenue continued. In late 1950s, the reliance of the government to loan in order to meet the country's deficit triggered a rapid increase in the rate of inflation and the index of cost of living. In 1961, the Ministry of Labour conducted a survey of price in Tehran for workers' market, for workers' basket commodities. The result became hideous. Revealing that a worker with a wife and two children had to take home a minimum of $2.2.30. I'm saying dollars for you, not realls because you can just imagine how was it. So what they needed, a worker with two children and a wife and two children needed $2.30 a day in order to feed and clothe his family at minimum standard of decency and health. This compared to the minimum wage of only 66 cents. Basket was talking about $2.36 and the wage was 366 cents only. So this was only in Tehran, in Housestan that was much worse than this. The salaries remained as it was five, six years prior to this. So everybody knew that something should be happened. The country badly needed change. Don't forget that the post-Second World War was the pinnacle of the anti-colonial and national liberation movement worldwide with substantial ingredients of anti-imperialism and anti-Americanism. These movements embedded in the ever-increasing tension of globally refashioned known as the Cold War. The need for implication of authoritarian reform, though chiefly being confined within the boundaries of economy and social development, dated back to the United States Democrat Harry Truman 4 points, launched in 1949. A concern that could be traced even before the Democrat resuming part in the United States in 1961 and pursuing economic and liberal reform in Iran. The Democrats were concerned about the retardation of what they proposed earlier. The Kennedy administration called to their allies in the Global South in the following terms, crystal and clear. Either you opt for the top-down reform or the bottom-up revolution wrap up your rules. In August 1961, the Shah held a rally in Doshan Tappe. That was a few months after that we had another rally by Jeppe Mele. Doshan Tappe is of Tehran. He announced the introduction of series of widespread economic reform which he intended to implement. Following some two years of scrutinizing old possible reform path, finally on 26 January 1963, an outline of authoritarian development was announced by the Shah and put to the referendum. The core of the reform was a series of far-reaching economic plans later known as the Right Revolution. Alongside the economic growth which occurred together with notable economic and social change, there was no trace of political development. The exclusive and coercive political practice was prevailing as before. While in the social sphere, change in urban and rural relationship becoming more conspicuous, the political space was still suffering from the post-1953 coup's repression. A strong female presence in all professionals including an increase in the number of female workers, widespread literacy program increased higher education opportunities, improved healthcare and communication network among others were the direct outcome of the practice of such developmental state. The population mobility which was the outcome of this reform led to increase, led to increase right of citizen whom the Shah was, whom the Shah using his somehow leftist terminology calling free liberated man, free liberated women, Azad Mardan and Azad Zanon. In forced top-down reform together with increased social forces from below resulted in demands from citizen for their rights. The political activists of this period could not ignore this development. What is really important is this period that was a prior to the white revolution has been somehow overlooked was we had this third five years development plan, 1962 to 1967 that was initiated by a young economist coming from Harvard and they were in fact I mean proposed their project prior to the Shahs but Shah tried in somehow to downgrade their initiative. The third five years plan managed to secure a growth of gross national product of 8.8%. Within these average annual growth share of industrial and mining sector was 7.12%. In this period the migration of labor from ruler to urban area resulted in an increase in a labor force in urban industries. Hundreds of thousands of villagers marched towards the cities. Between the years 1956 to 1966 this ten years the total number of job created reach newly job created reach to 950,000 of these 950,000 new job. 60,000 600,000 plus were industrial and mining. Those employed in this sector were predominantly from the labor force from the ruler areas. Between 1962 and 67 from the total active labor force of the country the share of the agriculture sector shrank by 6.1%. While the number of the employees in the industrial sector grew by 4.2% to more than 2 million workforce. In real term the purchasing power of the workers in certain large industry improved by 40%. Noticeably an indication of uneven development in waging policy endorsed by the government. Surely Iranian order venue had a major contribution towards the utility of the third five years development plan. With an estimated increase of 13.6% the oil was the major input into the country's economic reconstruction. The fiscal influence of the order venue had two fold effect on the Iranian economy. First it provided a source of income for the government to supplement its budgetary expenditure. And second the order venue were challenged through the plan organization or budgetary plan organization for investment in various development projects. I had a long interview with Alina Alihani for my old project because he moved to Abadan when he finished his degree from the United States. And then he told me stories about that that how they all contributed to this development in this area. Now the share of all the contribution of all how was changed everyday life in Hossistan in this period. Such an escalation not only dabbled the value added to the oil revenue but also increased the oil share in the country's gross national product from 11.6% in 1962 to 14.5% in 1967. This is roughly the number of employees in the oil industry from 51, 55 to 1978. Very interesting to note something here that all these things happening there is not done by oil concessions. Because in the beginning they decided that the concessions is nothing to do with the housing, with the welfare, with the everyday life of the workers. Only concessions focused on managing the producing and refining oil. That's it. So all these things happening and I cover it in a few moments is done by the Iranian national oil companies employees. In 1960 and 70 the housing policy of the oil company contributed significantly to the workers welfare and standard of living. The workers enjoyed free rent housing, free rent housing without when the consumption of water and electricity was also free. From 1961 to 1966 in a new district of Abadan the oil company built above 14,000 new houses. Just imagine compared to 5,000. The whole history of the Anglo-Iranian oil company, Anglo-Persian oil company. This is the North Bovarde in the oil workers quarter in 1970. This is oil workers. This is the North Bovarde again another view in the 1970. And this is after eight years when we come to the revolution before the revolution. This is the Bovarde workers district. Some points about the health. In 1955 the health care center was opened in Abadan and later in Masjid-e-Soleiman and Aghajari and Avaz. As a result of the measures introduced by this by the center the industrial accident industrial accident decreased from 5,200 in 1956 to 860 in 1960 and to only 130 in 1970. This is the better working conditions. The health care service of the company included medicine free, health care free for all oil workers and their families. Overall it is safe to say that the oil industry provided next to army the best health care system to its employee through the myriad of hospitals and clinics which by the late 1970s included eight hospitals, 52 clinics, 10 health centers and eight industrial health care centers in Hosehstein. Along the economic development in 1960 the life of the workers changed drastically. The monthly income of the workers included the basic wage, overtime, overtime payment, location dependency, housing subsidies, travel and charge allowance and new year bonus was added. Enjoying high income was not only the privilege for the oil workers. They also profited from the cheap and highly qualified products offered by the shops, the cooperative shops of oil industry. By 1972 there were 62 cooperative shops all over Iran for the oil workers. And some point about the leisure. The oil company's reproductive role was not only limited to education, housing and health care. It extended into oil workers leisure time as well. Let me to share some very interesting picture. I love this. The workers sport in Abadan. Swimming pool for children of the workers. Abadan's early morning sport for workers. Cycling club for the workers. Cinematage. Those of you are familiar with Abadan. Very famous cinematage. You know, you've got so many things about the cinematage in novels and poetry of Abadan. Radio Naftimele. They had a special radio. Radio Naftimele. And media. They had a periodics published in Abadan locals. And let me to say something about the activism. Did we have labor activism in this period? Sure. I mean, David cannot live with activism. Of course. But different type of activism. Let's go through this activism together. Some scholars in their narration of labor activism in the 1960s and early 1970s hold this period as the dark years of the labor movement. Late Fred Halliday was one of them. But this is not right. This is not correct. One of my PhD students, Maral Jeffroody, in a brilliant article, revisiting the long nights of the Iranian workers, challenges this reading by underlying that the labor activism in this period never died, but moved from the revolutionary to non-conflict transformative form. In contrast to the 1940s, the labor protests of the 1960s and early 70s took a different form from those that political activists remembered or that recently heard about. We had a labor union, but this was an official government union. In 1959, the Supreme Council of the Labor approved the bill for the registration of workers union after debating about the general principles of the bill for many, many years. These unions were formed with the approval of the security service SAVAC and the Ministry of Justice. And their leaders, very interesting, the leaders of the unionists, the unionists were trained in a syndicate-based courses which were organized by the United States government in Iran. Workers invoicing their demands used the capabilities of these unions for pursuing their demands. I'll give you an example. In March 1969, more than 4,000 workers of Abadan refinery, 69, more than 4,000 workers of Abadan refinery and its related industry stage a strike to protest the decision of classifying job at the oil company. The strike lasted for 20 years. Eventually came to an end with the demand of the workers being accepted and even payment for the salaries that had been lost during the strike period was paid. There were reports, very interesting. There were reports indicating that the workers during this strike and protest held the photo of Shah and the placards with the codes from the Shahs about the Azad, Mardan, Azad, Zanan. And calling that we are the generation of the white revolution, we want our rights to be acknowledged. Different type. There is also a narrative, very interesting. This is an interview, I mean we did, I mean with workers. There is also a narrative that at their meeting the workers sheltered. They had a meeting to discuss about the strike. But they sheltered the door of the meeting room with the posters with the Shah to protect themselves from the onslaught of the police and security service. So if the attackers could come to the room they have to tear up, tear down the picture of Shah. So nobody dared to do that. So they had a peaceful meeting there. So these are the measures the workers adapted in 1960s for better life, better wage. And this brings me to 1978 to end of my talk. Reaching the revolution. And my reading of what happened. The rapid, significant but uneven socioeconomic growth together with a severe underdeveloped political system was the situation Iran witnessed during two decades of 1960. And 1970s. To my reading this was the roots of the crisis which happened in the mid 1970s. Uneven distribution of wealth, social services and opportunities which were the result of rapid and again uneven growth could not end up other than, social and political gaps. In a report, just give you one example. In a report prepared by the international labour organization ILO in 1972 Iran was next to one of the countries which had the most uneven distribution of income. In 1972 the average income of the workers in a large industry as an example was 1,200 Riyals. Within a few years, few months even, this reached to 1,500 Riyals. And then 20% on top increase and sometimes when we come to 1975, 100% increase, 200% increase. That was all industry, machine industry, the steel industry, the large industry. So the workers in the large industry benefit from the high salaries, wages. On the other hand, the average of workers in a non-large industries remained very, very low. 600. So the larger scale of rural migration was another problem. Resulted in an excessive uncontrolled growth of the squatter settlements. That was another indicative of this appropriation, appropriate spread of population. In 15 years the population of Iran increased from 23 million in 1960 to 34 million in 1974. Cities experienced a double increase of population from 8 million to 16 million. Whereas the rural area witnessed a lower increase of 15 millions. This maximum growth occurred in 15 million to 18 millions. This maximum growth occurred in Tehran with an increase from 2.5 million people to 4.5 million in a single decade, 1966 to 1976. Due to the high rate of migration, Tehran could not be an ideal destination for migrants and neither could meet the demands of its citizens properly. Reaching its climates in mid-1970s, a squatter settlement contained all the urban inhabitants within the limit of urban economy, but no involved in it. The exact number of squatter settlers was not published, never published during these years. But based on the combination of facts and estimates, they should be between 500,000 to 1 million people. In the provinces, the increase of squatters were quite significant. In 1976, 11% of the whole population of Isfahan, 10% of Kermanshah, and between 5 to 6% of Abadan. This is really alarming. The voice of the squatters now could be heard louder, louder than the voice of industrial workers. The voice of the squatters now could be heard louder, louder than the voice of industrial workers. Labour in poor became more active. While this step of revolution could be heard even at the court, the workers of the oil industry were reluctant to join the revolution. And finally, when they were forced to join the popular unrest, their demands were chiefly political. Let me read together their demands when they joined the revolution. The abolition of martial law, the unconditional liberation of old political prisoners, and the return of exiled prisoners, dissolving the existing formal union and founding free and independent union. No reference to wage, no reference to housing, no reference to leisure. This is how the revolution reached the oil industry in 1979.