Iranian solidarity

Mansour Ossanlou, president of the Iranian bus workers' union Sherkat-e Vahed, visited Britain last month at the invitation of the International Transport Workers' Federation, the global transport workers' body. Ossanlou has suffered beatings and imprisonment for organising an independent union and industrial action in 2005-06. He was tried by "revolutionary courts" and is now awaiting the verdict.

He came to Britain to thank international transport unions for their solidarity over the past two years, which helped get him released from prison, and to explain the current situation for workers in Iran at a global unions meeting.

Ossanlou spoke to Labour Research and the edited transcript of the interview is on the LRD website www.lrd.org.uk