A Social History of Labour in the Iranian Oil Industry is a research project at the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam, headed by Prof. Touraj Atabaki. It aims to study different areas such as the formation of the work force, the emergence and development of industrial towns, the daily lives of the workforce, gender and ethnic relations, labour activism and organisation, class consciousness, the role of ideology, the relationship between the workforce, the company and the state, industrial relations etc.
In the coming years, a series of workshops will be organized in order to stimulate research on these topics and provide a space for researchers to develop, discuss and share their ideas.
The first workshop deals with four topics :
1) Historiography of Labour in Iran
The purpose of this session is to discuss conceptualisation, theorisation and methodology in the study of labour in Iran.
2) The Formation of the Working Class in the Oil Industry
The main questions posed in this session are: how did the labour force came into existence in the oil industry? How and in what ways did its composition change over time? The issues of recruitment, training and discipline are of special importance in this context.
3) Labour Activism and Organisation
This session is about formal and informal labour activism in the oil sector. We want to look into the early emergence of labour organizations and their gradual development into professional local, regional and national trade unions. Of special interest are their endeavours for better working and living conditions and their contribution to wider social and political movements such as the nationalisation of the oil industry and the revolution of 1978-82.
4) The Role of Ideology
This session deals with the ideological orientation of the state and the workers in the oil industry. The evaluation of the influence of socialist, nationalist and Islamist ideas among oil workers is the main topic in this session.