U.S. Support for Iran’s Labor Strikes Is Long Overdue

Iran’s workers are uniting in defiance. What began as a call to strike by the Truckers and Drivers Union on May 21 has now grown into a week-long protest spanning more than 40 cities across the country. Led by truckers, the strike protests low wages, high insurance premiums, and increased fuel subsidies.

For more than a decade, labor strikes in Iran have served as a reliable indicator of political unrest — at times, sparking mass protests and, at others, drawing momentum from them. What sets the current strike apart is not only its rapid spread and national scale but the indication that the Islamic Republic is losing its grip on Iran’s working class.

The 2017-18 Strikes Helped Ignite a Nationwide Anti-Regime Movement

The 2017-18 nationwide protests marked a pivotal civic moment in Iran when demonstrators called for the end of the Islamic Republic. This period coincided with major labor strikes.

For example, at the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Company in Khuzestan Province, workers launched repeated and prolonged strikes over unpaid wages, corrupt privatization schemes, and mismanagement. In nearby Ahvaz, approximately 4,000 steelworkers from the National Steel Industrial Group protested months of unpaid salaries.

These strikes became central to sustaining the broader protest movement, whose participants chanted slogans that included “Leave Syria, instead think of us” and “No to Gaza, no to Lebanon, my life for Iran” — a rebuke of the regime’s foreign policy and its neglect of domestic welfare.

Strikes in 2020-21 Shook the Foundations of Iran’s Energy Sector

The labor unrest escalated in the summers of 2020 and 2021, with strikes erupting across Iran’s critical oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors — industries that form the backbone of the country’s economy. In August 2020, strikes spread across southern and southwestern oil refineries and fields, demanding safer working conditions, fair wages, and the abolition of exploitative contracts. By June 2021, the unrest had widened to include not only the oil sector but also natural gas facilities, electric power plants, and even automobile manufacturing.

The scope and disruption of these strikes showed that even the most sensitive sectors were vulnerable to labor defiance. These actions helped, in part, set the stage for the 2022 uprising, which, in turn, inspired further strikes by teachers, healthcare workers, and legal professionals. Labor was no longer a siloed issue; it was part of a shared struggle against the regime.

Regime Crackdowns Have Failed to Quell Labor Defiance

Authorities have routinely cracked down on strikes with force throughout the years, arresting participants from Haft Tappeh, Ahvaz Steel, the oil sector, and teacher unions. Many labor activists have received harsh judicial sentences. The current truckers’ strike is already facing preemptive suppression, with many participants arrested and the judiciary preparing broader punitive measures. Yet past experience demonstrates that such crackdowns produce only temporary effects, as labor unrest has persisted throughout 2023, 2024, and now 2025.

Maximum Support for Iranian Workers Is the West’s Strongest Leverage

The persistence of Iran’s labor movement, despite Tehran’s repression, underscores the vitality of the country’s civil society. At a moment when even segments once aligned with the regime are turning away, it is a strategic imperative for Washington to support the workers. Backing these strikes challenges the Islamic Republic’s claim to represent Iranian national interests and exposes it as a regime widely seen by its own people as prioritizing ideological foreign wars over domestic welfare.

One constructive step would be for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations and allied international unions to publicly endorse Iran’s labor strikes. In conjunction with the Trump administration’s maximum pressure strategy on Tehran since February, a U.S. “maximum support” approach and the establishment of a strike fund would advance American interests and values by applying internal pressure where the regime is most vulnerable.

Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Janatan on X @JanatanSayeh. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_Iran. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.