About 2,000 workers of the Behshahr Chintz-Making textile factory in Mazandaran province, unpaid for 27 months and owed roughly 5 billion tomans, protested in April 2003 and began a hunger strike on 15 May 2003. The Canadian Labour Congress and CUPE wrote to President Khatami in May and June 2003 after officials offered to pay only 200 million tomans in the short term, an offer the workers rejected.