I still don’t have details about this, but Abdel Gelil is reporting a textile strike in the state-owned Al-Ameriya Company for Spinning and Weaving.
You of course remember the bribe Nazif gave the workers last April following the Mahalla Uprising. Back then, Mubarak’s prime minister decreed a 15-day bonus to all workers in the state-owned textile companies and a one-month bonus for Ghazl el-Mahalla in specific… which is totally foolish! Does Nazif think that the workers in the other textile mills are gonna be satisfied with that?! Now Al-Ameriya workers are striking demanding similar treatment to Ghazl el-Mahalla, and they want a full one month bonus.
If Al-Ameriya wins, expect the domino effect to explode. Other textile mills will follow suit.
UPDATE: More details from Abdel Gelil.
I would like to see such a wave of workers’ protests in Poland!
Only after April events in Mahalla I came to know about the power of protests in Egypt, and I’m truly amazed now, though sadly I can only see it all from a long distance. Let you know that there are still new people that join solidarity with heroic struggle of Egyptian working class. I spread now information about Mahalla and Egypt in some Polish leftist websites and along my friends and comrades, yet we in Poland doesn’t have strong leftist movement. Now there are some protests of laborers in Poland, but I think its power cannot be compared to that in Egypt now. People here fell into sad political abstinence – for example, big majority of them opposes participation of Poland in imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as project of building US anti-missile shield in Poland, yet the largest anti-war demonstration was about only 4000 in nearly 40000000 country. Polish ruling classes and their representation boast also because of the “best in Europe” relations between Poland and Zionist regime. Many of them are personally traitors of Polish proletarian revolution in 1980-81. Thugs!
It’s amazing that workers in Mahalla already in previous years strongly integrated their fight with anti-imperialism, as well as with other issues like women’s struggle. Yersterday, thanks to your blog, I have read the letter of Kamal el-Fayoumi, Tarek Amin and Karim el-Beheyri. And… I have no suitable words for their heroism and stubbornness, as well as for my contempt for the dictator who fears them so much to torture and enslave them. But their ability to sacrifice will not go in vein, I am sure! They are – like Ghazl el-Mahalla and the whole of your fighting proletariat – great example not only for Egypt.
Solidarity!