The draft bill would reduce employers’ insurance contribution from 23٪ to 7٪. In practice, it would remove a major burden from employers and shift it onto the public budget, social insurance funds, and the future of workers. At the same time, the suspension and cancellation of contracts for eight petrochemical workers in Mahshahr, after they pursued their legal claims, shows that pressure on labor is not limited to legislation.

The plan to eliminate or restrict contractor and intermediary firms was announced as a promise to end one of the most grinding mechanisms of labor exploitation, a structure that has for years kept large parts of the workforce suspended between real work and rightlessness. For millions of company-employed, contract, and project-based workers, “contracting” has never been a mere administrative label.