One of the biggest missed opportunities of the George W. Bush-era was turning its back on Iran’s Lech Walesa moment. While proponents of soft-power and those seeking to empower civil society often talk about the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the simple truth across the Arab Middle East, Turkey, and Iran is that there are few if any true NGOs; most are instead GONGOs, government-operated NGOs. In most countries, not only does the state dominate enterprise, but the ministry of labor also controls unions so that they cannot strike against the government’s interests. That has traditionally been the case in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, revolutionary foundations, and the state itself run perhaps 40 percent of Iran’s economy. The state traditionally has trampled upon the rights of ordinary workers who are sometimes owed more than eight months in back wages.

It was into this milieu that Mansour Osanlou stepped forward to say enough. He was the head of the Vahed bus drivers’ union and, in 2005, he led an ‘illegal’ strike. He was arrested, but ultimately triumphed and the Islamic Republic’s first truly independent union was born. There has been subsequent union formation among sugarcane works in the Iran’s Khuzistan province. President Hassan Rouhani’s administration has fought back, however, and union agitators (or their family members) have been arrested and, in some cases, killed. So much for the Rouhani-is-a-reformer narrative.

That has not stopped Iranians from agitating for their rights. According to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA), thousands of teachers today staged a protest not only in Tehran, but across Iran in cities such as Sanandaj, Hamadan, Bandar Abbas, Ilam, Zanjan, Kermanshah, Borujerd, Sabzevar, Damghan, Tabriz, Shiraz, Isfahan, Qazvin, Rasht, Arak, Shahr-i Kord, Ardabil, Bandar Abbas, Zahedan, Bushehr, Derdasht, and Kuhdasht. That’s pretty much every major Iranian city with the exceptions of Mashhad and Ahvaz. Most significantly, the protests happened after Iranian authorities summoned teachers the previous day and detained them until they signed a pledge not to take part in the planned protests.

The teachers’ demands range from better pay, to the release of teachers who are political prisoners, to the right to consult in the selection of principals, to the resignation of the education minister for alleged incompetence. Placards, according to ILNA, suggest that the poverty line is three million tomans monthly (approximately $1,000), but that teachers only get paid one-third that amount. This is the third mass protest in as many months.

A few thoughts:

• It is ironic that so many on the European left and among Democrats in the U.S. Congress justify the current diplomatic outreach on the assumption that dialogue will better the lot of the Iranian people. Clearly, thousands of Iranian teachers across Iran disagree.
• Iran has already received $11.9 billion in sanctions relief/unfrozen assets. Those who suggest that such money will benefit the Iranian people rather than simply fund Iran’s military enterprise may want to consider ample evidence that it does not.
• Even when ignored, it is clear that the Iranian labor movement is a mass movement capable of significant organization. What happened today, and on April 16, and on March 1 was not simply some show for propaganda as so many pro-Iranian marches.
• There’s something unfortunate—in the Walter Duranty sense—going on at the New York Times. In March, I highlighted how the Times had whitewashed religious oppression not only by ignoring it but also by advancing a demonstrably erroneous narrative that relied on false or fabricated statistics. Now, rather than cover a mass protest that spanned 23 cities, the New York Times instead chose to publish a story about the Tehran mayor’s patronage of art.

It will remain a shame of the George W. Bush administration that in 2005 it ignored an opportunity to support those fighting for individual rights and liberty in Iran. Obama has, though, in a serial fashion the Iranian people when they have taken to the streets, not only in 2009 but also today. How ironic it is that Obama, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former Sen. Hillary Clinton are so anxious to claim the mantle of protector of the workers and advocate for unions, but so willingly turn their back to workers in repressive societies like Iran’s who today put their necks on the line. Likewise, when push comes to shove, the European Greens seem more interested in engaging in dictator chic than in standing up for their professed principles.