Kurdistan
Environment keepers block the Sulaimani-Dukan road in protest of delay in their salaries on April 13, 2022. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Dozens of street sweepers from Piramagrun blocked the road between Sulaimani and Dukan, setting tires on fire and calling on their employers to pay their delayed salaries, which they claim have not been paid in months.
Piramagrun’s street sweepers are the latest to join workers from several other Sulaimani province towns and districts who have requested to return to work and to be paid their salary payments for the past months.
“We have not been paid our salaries since January. They paused the work around March 20. We worked until then without getting paid,” Saman Mohammed, a chauffeur at the Rozhgar Shinki street cleaning company told Rudaw’s Peshawa Bakhtyar on Wednesday. “The company tells us that the government has not provided them with the advanced payment since September.”
Fifteen-year-old street sweeper Ahmed Goran traveled from the town of Tasluja to join the Piramagrun workers in their protest. “I owe 25 thousand dinars to a store owner in Tasluja, I don’t even dare to visit him because I am ashamed,” said Goran.
“Up to this minute, none of them [officials] has come to support these workers and chauffeurs. There are some that can’t even pay for their diabetes pills. It is one thousand dinars, but they don’t have it,” said street cleaner Mohammed Hawez.
Hawez added that once the protests were over, they would resume cleaning the roads, and dispose of all the garbage caused during the protest.
“We love our environment. Even now, we’re all willing to put on our uniforms and clean-up for free, but not for lies. Lying to us, saying they will pay and they don’t,” lamented Hawez.
Piramagrun’s street sweepers are the latest to join workers from several other Sulaimani province towns and districts who have requested to return to work and to be paid their salary payments for the past months.
“We have not been paid our salaries since January. They paused the work around March 20. We worked until then without getting paid,” Saman Mohammed, a chauffeur at the Rozhgar Shinki street cleaning company told Rudaw’s Peshawa Bakhtyar on Wednesday. “The company tells us that the government has not provided them with the advanced payment since September.”
Fifteen-year-old street sweeper Ahmed Goran traveled from the town of Tasluja to join the Piramagrun workers in their protest. “I owe 25 thousand dinars to a store owner in Tasluja, I don’t even dare to visit him because I am ashamed,” said Goran.
“Up to this minute, none of them [officials] has come to support these workers and chauffeurs. There are some that can’t even pay for their diabetes pills. It is one thousand dinars, but they don’t have it,” said street cleaner Mohammed Hawez.
Hawez added that once the protests were over, they would resume cleaning the roads, and dispose of all the garbage caused during the protest.
“We love our environment. Even now, we’re all willing to put on our uniforms and clean-up for free, but not for lies. Lying to us, saying they will pay and they don’t,” lamented Hawez.
Cleaning companies in Sulaimani went on strike last month, claiming that the government had not provided them with financial assistance since September.
The companies previously received monthly financial assistance from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), but in the spring of last year the KRG implemented austerity measures on the financial assistance in aims to reduce government spending as they were facing a financial crisis due to disagreements with Baghdad over the region’s share of the federal budget.
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