Mansour Osanloo, president of the 17,000-member Sherkat-e-Vahed bus drivers union in Tehran, stood trial on February 24, 2007, for alleged "activities against the state and activities against national security." Osanloo was freed December 19, 2006, on heavy bail after spending one month in the infamous Evin prison.

		Vahed executive board members pose in front of a red solidarity flag signed by 400 delegates to the 2006 ITF Congress in Durban, South Africa.

Osanloo’s release — the second in four months — followed a global solidarity campaign by the Solidarity Center; the AFL-CIO; the International Transport Federation (ITF), with which Vahed is affiliated; the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC); the International Labor Organization; and numerous other unions, human rights organizations, and individual activists.

Before releasing Osanloo, authorities asked him to resign his union presidency, but he refused to do so. In anticipation of his trial, he released a "blueprint" for his union that decried the erosion of worker rights in Iran. Members of the Vahed syndicate are under continual harassment and scrutiny. In November 2006, a dozen Vahed union executive board members on their way to an ILO workshop were arrested and held for more than five hours before ILO officials secured their release. Osanloo himself had initially been arrested from January to August 2006 for labor organizing activity and was freed after a concerted effort from the global labor community. On November 19, he was brutally kidnapped and returned to prison by Iranian security and intelligence plainclothes agents.

According to a February 2 letter from Vahed to the ITF, workers attempting to report for their shift have been forcibly removed, and workers who contact union activists are under threat of losing their jobs. On February 10, 2007, the Tehran Board of Arbitration ruled to fire 16 and reinstate 10 of 54 drivers suspended without pay, all to receive half their earned backpay and bonuses. On February 15, one year after an International Day of Action on Iran, the ITF launched a petition to mobilize global labor support for reinstating all of the drivers with full backpay and bonuses, gaining union recognition from the government, and negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. By March 30, the company had compensated all 54 drivers at the mandated 50 percent rate.

In a recent radio interview, Osanloo said that his attorneys had reviewed more than 1,200 pages of charging documents but were unable to find any evidence of illegal activity.

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Learn more about the Solidarity Center's work with the global labor movement to protect Iranian worker rights.

On March 14, 2007, Tehran security forces arrested hundreds of Iranian teachers and academics during a peaceful rally.