On April 26th, at least 70 workers have been killed and many injured in a massive explosion at one of Iran’s key ports. The blast took place at Shahid Rajaee, the country’s largest commercial port, near the southern city of Bandar Abbas. Since the beginning of this year (March 2025 in Persian’s calendar), eleven mine workers have been killed in five different mines by the order of the capitalist system. One worker in the iron ore mine of the village of Abdollahabad in Mahabad was killed due to a mine collapse; seven workers in the Mehmandouyeh coal mine in Damghan also died in a collapse; one worker in the fluorine mine in the village of Ahang in Bajestan, Razavi Khorasan, was killed in another collapse; one worker in the Parvadeh coal mine in Tabas, whose death was described as “sudden”; and one worker in the Eastern Alborz coal mine in Shahroud died from a pulmonary condition caused by twenty years of inhaling dynamite gas. We use the verb “killed” deliberately—not merely because it is common in leftist discourse, but because these workers, and the many more whose deaths have not made the news, were directly killed by conditions imposed on them by capital owners, contractors, and the state.
From the crushed bodies of mine workers to the burned bodies of port laborers, we live body to body through disaster; from one catastrophe to the next.
The authorities of the Islamic Republic are busy managing the security narrative, making sure no one speaks outside the version of events dictated by those in power. Exiled opposition thugs howl with delight and thank the murderous rulers of Israel. Mainstream media pundits and online influencers deliver lofty speeches about the geopolitical dimensions of the situation and the “interests” of Iran and Israel. Everyone talks about the “strategic” implications of the catastrophe for trade and investment. Clowns and beggars issue calls for a “general strike” between sips of champagne. The merchants of misery launch strike funds and GoFundMe campaigns to finance their upcoming summer trips, luxury hotels, and private yachts, squeezing profit from blood and corpses.
But the real disaster lies elsewhere: fragmented and blood-soaked.
No one hears the cries from their throats—workers from impoverished and neglected towns, seeking bread miles away from their homes and families, dying under blank contracts and at the mercy of countless contractors in mines and ports. Stateless Baloch and undocumented Afghan workers who didn’t exist in official records before the collapse or the explosion, and still don’t exist now. They are not counted. No one offers them condolences. They are written off as “collateral costs” in the boom of business and big deals. From reformists to sanction advocates, all wash their hands in workers’ blood and turn toward their various qiblas to offer prayers of thanks.
On May Day, International Workers’ Day, in the legacy of the blood of the Chicago workers from a century and a half ago, the bodies of the world’s workers still bleed.
In the mine, in the port, under the rubble of capital, exploitation, and profit. In solidarity with the lives and bodies of the crushed miners and burned dockworkers, our comrades wrote on the walls a slogan echoing from the throats of the honorable retirees who have taken to the streets every week for two and a half years:
“From the mine to the port / Workers are being murdered.”
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