The last news about the explosion at the Madanjoo mine in Tabas, published by the regime’s media, was brief and painful: “The death of all the miners in the Madanjoo mine in Tabas has been confirmed. All efforts were only to retrieve their bodies.”
Thus, in the early days of autumn, as schools reopen, the children of hardworking miners, who had spent their entire lives in that remote desert town for a meager livelihood, must begin the new school year grieving the loss of their fathers. The grief of the survivors and families of the deceased becomes even more heartbreaking when we learn that they are struggling to cover the funeral expenses for their loved ones. Poverty grips them so tightly that their only request to the government reporters is to relay this message: “Write about what they did to us! We even had to pay for transporting our loved one’s body ourselves. We paid between 150 to 200 million rials to bring their lifeless bodies home. And that too, without a morgue! They just give us a few pieces of ice to place on them” (Source: The state-run Shargh newspaper, September 26).
The “astronomical” wages of mine workers
Working in Iran’s mines, especially coal and metal mines, is considered one of the hardest and most dangerous jobs. Miners face harsh conditions such as cave-ins, explosions, and toxic gases that threaten their lives. The lack of adequate safety, outdated equipment, and failure to follow health and safety standards have made workers’ situation extremely precarious.
In this situation, the danger and difficulty of working in Iran’s coal mines, which are “among the most underdeveloped in the country in terms of equipment, mining technology, and workforce training,” is much greater than in other mines in Iran. However, when one looks at the wages of these hardworking miners, the brutal exploitation by the regime’s officials becomes astonishing.
A state TV channel, during a live broadcast, displayed pay slips of some miners who died in November of last year. According to the images, the workers’ wages ranged from 70 to 100 million rials. The host and experts of the program speculated that their wages might have increased to 100 to 110 million rials this year. Meanwhile, the poverty line in Iran is around 300 million rials, meaning that the wages of the hardest-working miners in one of the most difficult jobs in Iran are roughly one-third below the poverty line.
However, the most shocking part of one of the pay slips was the meager amount the miners received for “hazard pay.”
On September 26, Arman news website published a continuation of the dialogue from the TV program under the headline “Revealing the Astronomical Salaries of Tabas Miners,” stating: “The hazard pay for a month of mining work is 6.13 million rials, which is about 200,000 rials per day, more like a joke than reality. This pay slip comes at a time when some officials receive between 70 and 100 euros per day (about 70 million rials) for ‘hard work’ on foreign missions like attending the Frankfurt Book Fair or a meeting. The exact amount varies by position.”
The plundering regime, which spares no expense for its privileged officials, regime insiders, and terrorist diplomats, paid each miner for grueling work 500 meters underground around one-third of a dollar a day in “hazard pay.”
A young intellectual among the deceased miners
In Iran, many university graduates and degree holders face unemployment and a lack of job opportunities related to their field of study. They are often forced to take up jobs like manual labor and unrelated work to make ends meet.
This tragic incident at the Tabas mine reveals another such case. Farhad Pirzad, one of the victims of the Tabas mine explosion, was born in Quchan. In 2012, he ranked 180th in the national university entrance exam and chose to study law at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, from which he graduated. Married with a 4-year-old child, he turned to mining work out of financial necessity. The sorrow of his death deepens when we learn that his brother, Hassan Pirzad, also perished in the same tragic accident.
The Tabas mine disaster and the regime leaders’ indifference toward it exemplify the neglect and crimes of the Iranian regime concerning human life in the country. These events show that for the mullahs’ regime, economic and political interests take precedence over the lives and rights of workers.
Lack of transparency, systemic corruption, and the absence of independent oversight mechanisms are among the factors that make these tragedies repeatable. The deceased President Ebrahim Raisi had also visited this mine and made many promises, none of which were fulfilled.
The Tabas mine disaster further inflamed public anger over the dire safety conditions for workers. Anywhere else in the world, top officials would have resigned or been dismissed, but while regime president Massoud Pezeshkian went to New York, the regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, in his speech on September 26, after learning about the “biggest mining accident in the world,” said nothing—not even a simple expression of regret. In doing so, he added yet another log to the fire burning in the hearts of Iranians who are ablaze with uprising and the desire for regime change.