Mahalla Updates: Troops step up presence; Labor organizers under govt pressure; FACTORY TO STRIKE 6 APRIL; SOLIDARITY NEEDED

Mubarak’s pigs have stepped up their presence in the Nile Delta town of Mahalla, as the largest textile mill in the Middle East is set to strike in less than three days…

As of the morning of the 6th of April, production at Ghazl el-Mahalla will be brought to a complete halt… The workers are raising demands, similar to the 14 points previously articulated by the Textile Workers’ League activists, the most important of which are:

1-Raising the living standards of all workers in the textile sector, to suit the skyrocketing increase in prices of basic commodities. The leaders on the factory floor are demanding that the national minimum wage, which hasn’t changed from 1984, to be increased from LE35 (US$6.4) to LE1,200 (US$218).
2-Increasing the monthly food allowance to LE150
3-Increasing the monthly bonuses to be at least 20% of the basic salary
4-Allocating housing allowances
5-Reforming the job promotions regulations
6-Job security and compensations for workers who hold college degrees or are pursuing higher education
7-Setting a fixed annual date, in a period of time no later than a month from the end of the Fiscal Year, to pay the workers their gross annual bonuses (profit shares + incentives + production plan goals’ achievement bonuses)
8-Prosecuting the former and current corrupt management officials who brought losses to the Ghazl el-Mahalla company
9-Restructuring the company hospital, contracting more medical specialists

The govt has already launched an open propaganda warfare against the organizers in the factory.. I’m receiving also reports of direct police threats and intimidation against activists, as well as “media leaks” about a planned mass round up of activists to abort the industrial action. Sarah Carr reports:

State security bodies have begun mobilizing outside the Ghazl El-Mahalla textile factory ahead of the strike planned for next Sunday, April 6, calling for better pay and conditions.
According to the website egyworkers.blogspot.com eight central security trucks containing police officers, soldiers and groups of the plainclothes police used to intimidate and attack protesters during demonstrations, have assembled around the factory.
The blog describes this mobilization as “the preparatory stage” of an attack on factory workers in the event of a strike.
The website also alleges that members of security bodies have given keys to individuals who will close the factory after the last shift on April 5 in order to prevent workers striking inside the factory.
Factory employees have repeatedly complained of collusion between the administration and workers’ syndicate officials, who they accuse of being cronies of the ruling National Democratic Party.
In addition, Kareem El-Beheiry, author of the website, told Daily News Egypt that 15 workers from the company were summoned to a police checkpoint in Mahalla, located in Gharbeia governorate. Members of security bodies told the men to intimidate co-workers into calling off the strike by telling them that if they do go on strike, they would be attacked by the police.
El-Beheiry says that the intimidation has had little effect on workers’ resolve.
“In a company as huge as this you have to expect that there will be a few workers working as informers for security bodies,” El-Beheiry said. “And the threats and intimidation are normal, we’ve seen it before. Nonetheless it is expected that around 20,000 workers will go on strike on Sunday regardless of these threats,” he continued.
In an attempt to quell strike momentum, factory officials displayed notices on Sunday in which they announced that food allowances had been increased from LE 43 to LE 90 by minister of investment Mahmoud Mohieldin.
Workers say that soaring food prices justify a LE 150 food allowance.

A socialist activist in Mahalla I spoke with today said the troops are in sight close to the company compound, and goons have starting wielding some of the factory’s gates…
In another more alarming development, Hussein Megawer (the head of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party’s parliamentary bloc and the head of the corrupt, state-backed General Federation of Trade Unions) summoned a group of five labor leaders to meet him in Cairo.: Muhammad el-Attar, Sayyed Habib, Magdi Sherif, Faisal Laqousha, Abdel Qader el-Deeb. Megawer treated them in a humiliating way, and didn’t dismiss them except after they signed a pledge not to go on strike on 6 April!! I was critical in a previous posting of some labor leaders in the factory, without mentioning their names, for being coopted by the govt… I’m afraid ya shabab, I meant no one but the names listed above. I didn’t want to mention them by name for a bunch of reasons which I won’t be discussing now, but I find no other choice but to go public against them as the strike approaches.. Attar and Habib had played a brave and central role in the December 2006 strike, and in launching the fight in January 2007 against the state-backed Factory Union Committee… But gradually over the course of the following months, both labor leaders and the circle around them, in other words the CTUWS posse, were being coopted during their rounds of negotiations with the Federation and govt officials… This has got nothing with those activists being insincere, or posers… This was more or less the inevitable outcome of the CTUWS emphasis on “pragmatisim” and “abandon[ing] overt political demands to focus on bread-and-butter issues” This “pragmatist” attitude towards whatever crises in the factory, meant that these labor leaders were susceptible to basically “whoever is gonna solve it”.. Over the course of the months throughout 2007, as hostility on the factory floor kept ascending against the state-backed union officials, an idea was floated related to the establishment of a “Representatives’ Committee,” that will act as a liaison between the workers on the factory floor and the Factory Union Committee. Attar and his comrades did accept the offer on a number of occasions, only to be rebuked by the workers back in the factory after they’d return from Megawer’s office or when it became clear they’d be powerless.. During the Sept 2007 strike, I heard severe complaints against the CTUWS activists in the factory, by four organizers in Ghazl el-Mahalla (one independent leftist and three socialists). Their complaints centered around Attar and the CTUWS activists, that while giving militant statements to the media they tried repeatedly to curb the militancy of the strike on the ground, showed their willingness to lower down the ceiling of the workers’ demands in negotiations with the govt officials, and finally tried to disband the strike as soon as they were released from police custody (only to U-turn under pressure from the factory floor).. Habib may be a slightly different story, standing out as a more experienced organizer among his peers, he remained as the most left-leaning activist in the CTUWS faction, and it was his strong intervention in the final round of negotiations in Sept 2007 that saved his faction’s face with Attar going on one compromise after the other.. Following the strike, the CTUWS faction played a sabotaging role when it came to initiatives put forward by organizers from other factions.. Attar, Habib and co even went as far as putting up three big banners signed with their names, following the end of the Sept 2007 Strike, in the factory, Shouna Sq and in front of the local NDP HQ, extending support to the NDP local MP… These activists were promised, to be the “unofficial representatives” of the workers. The Factory Union Committee was not to be impeached, the govt made it clear to them (even after the resignation of Seddiq Siyam, the head of the FUC, who was hospitalized by the Sept 2007 strikers when he suggested an end to the industrial action), but in exchange the govt claimed it was to “sideline” the FUC and deal with this posse as the “real representatives.” Attar for example during his round of negotiations with Megawer in the summer of 2007, repeated several times to me (with a sense of victory) how Megawer told him: “We consider you the representatives of the workers. If you need anything just come straight to my office. But I don’t want troubles in the factory.” That deal however meant that Attar and Co went acutely sectarian against the other factions in the factory, refrained from taking the fight against the govt-backed unions forward, as well as aborting or hijacking plans of protests by other factions… It really breaks my heart to be writing this, since Attar and Habib were among some of my earliest contacts in Mahalla; their role in Dec 2006 inspired me tremendously, and we enjoyed a good personal relationship till I left for Berkeley… But I cannot be silent in front of this outright disgusting behavior by the two or let my personal feelings interfere in my judgement of the situation, especially as the countdown for the strike has started…

But the only positive outcome from this CTUWS’ shift to the right, is that organizers from the radical left who played an important, yet not as central as that of the CTUWS’, role in the Dec 2006 strike, incrementally increased their power base on the factory floor, rising to prominence with the Sept 2007 strike, and then mobilized the biggest anti-regime workers protest under Mubarak’s reign last February… And it’s those activists, centered around the Mahalla-based Textile Workers’ League, who’ll be be leading the coming strike, while the CTUWS activists have official kissed Megawer’s ass and signed the pledge they won’t be striking.. How did we know about the details of the meeting? Upon learning of the CTUWS’ activists’ planned trip to Cairo, two of the Textile Workers’ League activists, Wael Habib and Kamal el-Fayoumi, smelt a rat and forced their way to be part of the delegation. Wael and Kamal attended the meeting, heard Megawer’s threats, saw their colleagues signing the pledge.. but the two bravely refused to sign and left… A socialist activist in Mahalla confirmed to me also today that the CTUWS faction has distributed leaflets inside the factory announcing “they have nothing to do with the strike on 6 April.” Another small group affiliated with the Nasserist Party in Mahalla also distributed anti-strike statements.. The Textile Workers’ League activists are coming under immense pressures to call the strike off, but my sources confirm that up till now the organizers are still determined to go ahead..

Activists elsewhere are gearing up for industrial actions in solidarity with Ghazl el-Mahalla, scheduled to go simultaneously on 6 April… and student demonstrations are planned in Helwan and Cairo universities… The calls for a general strike continue to fill the Egyptian cyberspace in blog postings, emails, and facebook messages and exchanged in SMSs… There’s a level of optimism generally sensed in what one reads and I get emails from friends about their plans to not show up for work on 6 April… However, I still stick by my previous position that it’s a mistake to call for a “general strike” by elitist groups from the top and I find a degree of political opportunism and adventurism in this call… (It seems however the US Embassy in Cairo is taking the call seriously and has threatened to fire any local employee who misses work on that day)… You may come across reports that quote Magdi Hussein claiming that the Revolutionary Socialists are part of the joint call for the general strike… This is NOT true… The RS took part in the coordination meetings held by the opposition groups to discuss solidarity with 6th of April Mahalla strike, but the quixotic call for the general strike came initially from Magdi Hussein, and Kefaya’s Abdel Halim Qandeel jumped on it.. The RS made it clear to the colleagues in the opposition groups that a general strike cannot be brought about by groups which still lack roots in the workplaces, and that the RS contribution will be solely limited to mobilization in Mahalla itself and to the direct solidarity actions with the Mahalla strikers in the provincial industrial urban centers and the universities… In the same way that independent national labor unions are not built by some calls dropping from the sky (rather they should be [and are being] built from below factory by factory), general strikes cannot happen by some cyber-calls dropping from above by those who do not enjoy grassroots support… But one has to admit that it’s a positive phenomenon to see how the “culture of strikes” (as the media dubs it) is spreading and enjoying the support of the youth, unlike the dark days of the 1990s…

Comrades around the world, keep your eyes on Mahalla.. This coming battle will be much fiercer than the two previous strikes… We need your solidarity.. We need statements of support from labor unions, syndicates, student unions, community associations, human rights groups… Email me whatever you manage to get, and I’ll do my best to see your statements make it to Mahalla…

My heart and thoughts go out to the Textile Workers’ League, to the men and women in the factory… They are our biggest hope to rid this country of the US-backed Mubarak’s dictatorship…