David Bacon

lives and works in San Francisco, USA

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

Oakland, CA 7/25/03

Students at the Oakland Military Institute, a military charter school sponsored by Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, located in the Oakland Army Base. Brown, formerly a progressive politician who criticized US foreign policy, decided that poor children in the city needed a military school to enforce more a more disciplined and structured environment.

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

© David Bacon

Baghdad, Iraq October 10-14, 2003

Photos of workers at Baghdad's Al Daura oil refinery, at the State Factory for Leather Products, and the Mamoun Vegetable Oil Factory.

These are all state-owned factories, where the US occupation authorities continue to enforce a law issued by Saddam Hussein in 1987 banning unions and collective bargaining, and now a new decree issued in June banning strikes. Workers describe wages of $60 a month, and the loss of bonuses and other benefits since the occupation began. Despite the ban, they are organizing unions and beginning an effort to save their jobs from privatization, and to win better wages and conditions.

The photos also show children of refinery workers selling oil by the roadside and unemployed workers demonstrating for income and jobs.