Strikes by Iranian energy, petrochemicals and steel workers are gaining momentum as new firms have joined nationwide industrial action.

Workers in more than 80 companies have joined industrial action, protesting poor working conditions, low wages and rising costs of living, according to the Council for Organizing Oil Contract-Workers' Protests.

The council accused the regime of seeking to sow division among workers through ethnic differences. ”It can be seen in some places that our protest rallies have been dispersed on the pretext that workers belong to a certain ethnicity,” the group said in a statement this week.

“This is while all of us workers from every part of the country have common pains and enemies. All of us are protesting the poverty and rising prices and worsening of our working and living conditions every day.”...

[Refers to Salman Farsi Petrochemical Co.; the Resource Centre could not find contact information to invite Salman Farsi to respond. This page will be updated if the company makes any public statement regarding the reports of striking workers.]