ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relationship between the labor movement and democracy in Iran after the Revolution. In a market economy, the relationship between the labor movement and democracy occurs in one of two forms. The first type, “immediate relations,” refers to a situation in which labor is assumed to be a powerful economic institution united in a single national organ and capable of imposing its political demands upon the state through changing the balance of forces in society in favor of democratic processes and practices. The second type, “mediated relation,” refers to the labor movement-democracy relationship in which labor seeks to implement a strategy of “economic democracy” through a transformation of the authoritarian division of labor in the workplace. The labor movement, however, failed to act as an effective force to maintain the political democracy that had been generated in the aftermath of the Revolution.
