Submitted by Touraj Atabaki on Tue, 2015-10-27 09:31
Type:
Article
Research abstract:
The extraction of oil in 1908 and the ensuing construction of an oil refinery, shipping docks
and company towns in southwest Persia/Iran opened a new chapter in the nation’s labor
history. Enjoying absolute monopoly over the extraction, production and marketing of
the oil, the Anglo-Persian/Iranian Oil Company (APOC, AIOC, now British
Petroleum––BP) embarked on a massive labor recruitment campaign, drawing its
recruits primarily from tribal and village-based laboring poor throughout a region. But,
in a region where human needs were few and cheap, it was no easy task to persuade
young men to leave their traditional mode of life in exchange for industrial milieu with
radically different work patterns. Those who did join the oil industry’s work force were
then subjected to labor discipline of an advanced industrial economy, which eventually
contributed to the formation of the early clusters of modern Iran’s working class.
Category:
Political Science, Economics, Social Studies
Publication (if published):
2013