Workers in Iraq's southern oilfields began organising soon after British occupying forces invaded Basra. We founded our union, the Southern Oil Company Union, just 11 days after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. When the occupation troops stood back and allowed Basra's hospitals, universities and public services to be burned and looted, while they defended only the oil ministry and oilfields, we knew we were dealing with a brutal force prepared to impose its will without regard for human suffering. From the beginning, we were left in no doubt that the US and its allies had come to take control of our oil resources.

The occupation authorities have maintained many of Saddam's repressive laws, including the 1987 order which robbed us of basic union rights, including the right to strike. Today, we still have no official recognition as a trade union, despite having 23,000 members in 10 oil and gas companies in Basra, Amara, Nassiriya, and up to Anbar province. However, we draw our legitimacy from the workers, not the government. We believe unions should operate regardless of the government's wishes, until the people are able finally to elect a genuinely accountable and independent Iraqi government, which represents our interests and not those of American imperialism.

Our union is independent of any political party. Most trade unions in Britain only seem to be aware of one union federation in Iraq, the regime-authorised Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, whose president, Rassim Awadi, is deputy leader of the US-imposed prime minister Ayad Allawi's party. The IFTU's leadership is carved up between the pro-government Communist party, Allawi's Iraqi National Accord, and their satellites. In fact, there are two other union federations, which are linked to political parties, as well as our own organisation.

Our union has already shown it is able to stand its ground against one of the most powerful US companies, Dick Cheney's KBR, which tried to take over our workplaces with the protection of occupation forces.

We forced them out and compelled their Kuwaiti subcontractor, Al Khourafi, to replace 1,000 of the 1,200 employees it brought with it with Iraqi workers, 70% of whom are unemployed today. We also fought US viceroy Paul Bremer's wage schedule, which dictated that Iraqi public sector workers must earn ID 69,000 ($35) per month, while paying up to $1,000 a day to thousands of foreign mercenaries. In August 2003 we took strike action and shut down all oil production for three days. As a result, the occupation authorities had to raise wages to a minimum of ID 150,000.

We see it as our duty to defend the country's resources. We reject and will oppose all moves to privatise our oil industry and national resources. We regard this privatisation as a form of neo-colonialism, an attempt to impose a permanent economic occupation to follow the military occupation.

The occupation has deliberately fomented a sectarian division of Sunni and Shia. We never knew this sort of division before. Our families intermarried, we lived and worked together. And today we are resisting this brutal occupation together, from Falluja to Najaf to Sadr City. The resistance to the occupation forces is a God-given right of Iraqis, and we, as a union, see ourselves as a necessary part of this resistance - although we will fight using our industrial power, our collective strength as a union, and as a part of civil society which needs to grow in order to defeat both still-powerful Saddamist elites and the foreign occupation of our country.

Bush and Blair should remember that those who voted in last month's elections in Iraq are as hostile to the occupation as those who boycotted them. Those who claim to represent the Iraqi working class while calling for the occupation to stay a bit longer, due to "fears of civil war", are in fact speaking only for themselves and the minority of Iraqis whose interests are dependent on the occupation.

We as a union call for the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces and their military bases. We don't want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

"Our aim in SOCU is to organise oil workers who have an important role to play in the resistance against the occupation and to put forward workers' interests to the employers.

All the refineries in the south are still state owned and we are trying to build links with other oil workers elsewhere in Iraq to unite the fight against privatisation of the oil industry.

The occupation of Iraq is seen by most Iraqis as illegal. This occupation is not about freeing the Iraqis but about oil and the looting of Iraq's natural resources. After the military occupation comes economic occupation!

Nationalisation of the Iraqi oil industry [in 1958] was a blow to colonisation and US imperialism at the time. Now, instead of economic sanctions [imposed on Saddam Hussein's regime following the 1991 Gulf War], we see an economic occupation that will push through privatisation.

We are seeing Iraqis from Saddam's old regime who left Iraq with millions of dollars returning to buy industries. These are the people with capital - the Iraqi capitalists. What is important is to oppose all privatisation by the capitalists."

Q: What were the problems that the union had to overcome?

A: Workers haven't received what they should. The occupying forces issued Order #30 setting wages for workers in the public sector. According to this order, the salary of a worker would be 69,000 Iraqi dinars a month, the equivalent of about $35. That salary was extremely low, while inflation and the cost of living are very high.

Iraqi oil reserves are the second largest in world. We asked ourselves, in a situation like that, how can it be that the workers in our industry would be getting a monthly salary of $35? We found that the American administration wasn't willing to cooperate with us about the scale, so we decided to go on strike on the 13th of August. After a short strike, we managed to get the minimum salary up to 150,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $100. This for us is the beginning of the struggle to improve the income of the oil workers. We were also able to get the American company KBR to withdraw its personnel from our installations completely.

Q: How do the members of the oil workers union look at the occupation?

A: From all the meetings we've had with workers all over the industry, we've heard from almost everyone that they want the occupation to end immediately, and the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq.

Q: Are you concerned about your security if the occupation ends immediately?

A: No, we are not worried. We don't have any problem with that because we are able to look after ourselves and our own security.

Q: If the occupation forces withdraw, isn't there a danger that there could be attacks on trade unionists by the insurgents, like those which have taken place in Baghdad?

A: That could happen, but we have to solve our problems ourselves.

Q: What kind of government do you want to see?

A: We want a government that will represent the national Iraqi movements. It should be friendly to all countries, especially those that stood against the war and occupation.

“The opinion of all [Iraqi] oilworkers is that they are against privatisation”, states Hassan. “We see privatisation as economic colonialism. The authorities are saying that privatisation will develop our sector and be useful. But we do not see it as development at all; we view any plan to privatise the oil sector as a big disaster”.

Sovereignty over its oil reserves is key to Iraq’s future development, Hassan argues. “Oil must stay in the hands of Iraqis, because oil is the only national resource that we have which is of great value, and our economy depends on it”.