Iraqi union leader urges opposition to oil law (Reuters)

Iraqi union leader urges opposition to oil law
18 Jun 2007 18:55:08 GMT
Source: Reuters

By Claudia Parsons

NEW YORK, June 18 (Reuters) - A proposed law regulating
Iraq's oil industry would foster U.S. "hegemony" over the
world's third largest oil reserves and Iraqi oil workers
are determined to oppose it, an Iraqi union leader said
on Monday.

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 U.S. tour
to press for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.

Washington has been pressing Iraq's government to enact
the law which the U.S. administration sees as a benchmark
of progress toward national reconciliation more than four
years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

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.

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