Statement by Independent Iranian Collectives Opposing War and Militaristic Policies
In light of the unstable and dangerous situation currently facing Iran and the region, the undersigned collectives consider it their duty to adopt a united stance.
The working classes of Iran — workers, teachers, nurses, retirees, and other wage earners — have never, and will never, benefit from war, from increasing militarization, from bombardments on the country, or from the dominant exploitative policies.
The military attacks by Israel and the bombing of hundreds of targets across various regions of Iran — including
infrastructure, workplaces, refineries, and residential areas — are part of a militaristic project whose cost is borne by ordinary people, especially the working class, in the form of lost lives, livelihoods, and security.
The Israeli state’s claim that it harbors no hostility toward the Iranian people is nothing but a lie and a piece of political propaganda. Just yesterday, the Israeli Minister of Defense threatened to “reduce Tehran to ashes.” The constant threats from Trump and other U.S. officials, along with the full support of Western governments for such actions, have only exacerbated tensions, insecurity, and destruction in the region.
The governments of Israel and the United States are directly responsible for the current genocide in Gaza and for many
other crimes committed in the region and the world. The United Nations and other international institutions, which hypocritically present themselves as defenders of peace while remaining silent in the face of these crimes, are also part of this same structure of domination. The global capitalist system — with its profit-driven logic and imperialist powers — is a root cause of wars, humanitarian catastrophes, and environmental destruction.
The Iranian working class not only gains nothing from war, but is directly targeted by it. The continuation of economic sanctions, massive allocations to military spending, and the restriction of freedoms bring about further poverty, repression, hunger, death, and displacement for millions.
We, the independent labor and popular activists and collectives of Iran, have no illusions that the United States or Israel will bring us freedom, equality, or justice — just as we hold no illusions about the repressive, interventionist, reckless, and anti-worker nature of the Islamic Republic.
For years, Iranian workers have been struggling to obtain the most basic rights and living conditions, paying extremely high prices: imprisonment, torture, executions, dismissal from jobs, threats, and physical assault. We are still deprived of the right to organize, to assemble, and to freely express ourselves. Workers across the country have every reason to be outraged and fed up with the Islamic Republic and the capitalists who, for more than four decades, have accumulated
immense wealth at the cost of our precarity and lack of rights. All authorities and institutions responsible for the repression and murder of workers, women, youth, and other oppressed people in Iran must be held accountable and judged by the people themselves.
Our struggle as a working class is a social and class-based struggle. It will continue by relying on our own strength, on the momentum of recent popular movements — such as Bread, Work, Freedom and Woman, Life, Freedom — and through solidarity with the international working class and all humanist, libertarian, and egalitarian forces.
The continuation of the current path of war will bring nothing but further destruction, irreversible environmental damage, and
the repetition of human tragedies. The Iranian working class and oppressed people — like the oppressed peoples of other countries in the region — are among the main victims of this situation.
We, the undersigned collectives, call on all labor organizations, human rights groups, peace movements, environmental activists, and antiwar forces around the world to raise a united voice to demand an immediate end to war, bombings, massacres of innocent people, and environmental destruction — and to support the struggles of the people of Iran and the region to end genocide, war, and repression.
The peoples of the Middle East need an end to the devastating tensions between regional and global powers, and the
establishment of a lasting peace — a peace in which people can determine their own destinies through grassroots organizing, mass protest, and direct, collective participation.
No to war – No to militarism!
An immediate ceasefire is our urgent demand.
Signed by:
Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company
Syndicate of Workers of the Haft Tapeh Sugarcane Company
Retired Workers of Khuzestan
Pensioners’ Union
Coordination Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations
Pensioners’ Union Group
June 17, 2025
