Iran’s latest wave of unrest has revived the expectation that sustained protests eventually will reach the oil sector and choke off the regime’s primary revenue stream. That escalation has not occurred. The absence of large-scale oil worker strikes does not reflect apathy or ignorance, but rather a set of structural constraints that sharply limit oil workers’ capacity and incentives to mobilize, even during periods of intense national crisis.
The most important constraint is labor fragmentation. Over the past three decades, Iran has transformed its oil workforce into a two-tier system. A relatively small core of permanent National Iranian Oil Company employees works alongside a much larger population of contract laborers employed through private subcontractors. These contractors perform much of the physical and operational labor in oil fields, refineries, and gas processing facilities, yet they lack job security, collective bargaining rights, and legal protections. Employers can terminate contracts quickly and blacklist workers across projects, making participation in strikes a high-risk decision.
Employers can terminate contracts quickly and blacklist workers across projects, making participation in strikes a high-risk decision.
This structure prevents coordination. Permanent staff and contract workers operate under different pay scales, benefits, and chains of command. They rarely share grievance mechanisms or organizational channels. Even when contractors protest working conditions or delayed wages, these actions tend to remain localized and short-lived. They do not spill into core production units, where permanent staff face stronger incentives to maintain stability.
The regime has reinforced this segmentation through ethnic and regional stratification. Oil-producing provinces rely heavily on contract labor drawn from marginalized ethnic groups, while senior technical and managerial positions remain dominated by politically vetted networks. This division weakens trust, complicates collective action, and allows authorities to isolate unrest before it spreads across sites or job categories.
Economic insulation further dampens strike incentives. While inflation and currency collapse have devastated merchants and urban wage earners, the oil sector remains partially shielded from the broader crisis. Compensation structures in energy production often track hard-currency benchmarks, and the state has prioritized timely wage payments and benefits for oil workers. Even contract laborers typically earn above the national average, particularly in skilled roles.
This insulation produces a rational calculation. A strike threatens not only income but also access to housing, health care, and allowances that buffer workers from economic volatility. In an economy marked by high unemployment and limited mobility, many oil workers view protest participation as an unacceptable gamble. Past protest cycles confirm this logic. During unrest in 2019 and 2022, oil workers largely stayed on the sidelines while demonstrations were concentrated in sectors with less to lose and fewer institutional protections.
Security control represents the most decisive barrier. The regime treats oil infrastructure as a strategic asset and places it under direct oversight of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Security units monitor facilities, restrict access, and maintain constant surveillance of workers. Authorities criminalize labor organizing and respond quickly to any sign of coordination. Arrests, interrogations, and forced confessions have followed previous attempts at collective action, creating a strong deterrent effect.
Arrests, interrogations, and forced confessions have followed previous attempts at collective action, creating a strong deterrent effect.
This securitization extends beyond physical control. Communication restrictions and periodic internet shutdowns prevent workers from coordinating across sites or regions. Even when isolated stoppages occur, security forces move rapidly to contain them before they disrupt production or exports. The regime has learned from the 1979 revolution and designed its energy sector to prevent precisely the kind of labor mobilization that once brought it down.
Political appeals alone cannot overcome these constraints. Calls from opposition figures for energy sector strikes assume a level of organizational capacity and risk tolerance that does not exist under current conditions. Without mechanisms to protect participants, compensate losses, or sustain coordination, such appeals remain symbolic. They may resonate rhetorically but fail operationally.
Taken together, labor fragmentation, economic insulation, and securitization explain why Iran’s oil workers have not struck. These factors do not operate independently; they reinforce one another. Fragmentation limits solidarity, insulation raises the cost of participation, and security control eliminates space for organization. The result is a sector engineered for stability amid unrest elsewhere.
This does not mean oil workers will never mobilize but, rather, that escalation requires structural change, not rhetorical escalation. Sustained erosion of wage protections, breakdowns in security enforcement, or successful coordination across labor tiers could alter the calculus. For now, however, the regime’s design holds. Protests may disrupt commerce, politics, and urban life, but they have yet to penetrate the core of Iran’s energy economy. Until those barriers weaken, expectations of an oil-led tipping point will remain misplaced.
