State Security Police tried to seal off the factory Wednesday morning by closing the main gate, but the workers stormed the gate and opened it by force.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_OxePhwe-c
The troops are still deploying around the factory. Kareem took some pix of the troops clearing out the area around the factory compound of street vendors:
And here are the troops stationed at the entrance to the city:
Some clips taken by Kareem el-Beheiri of the strike on Tuesday night.
You can find in the first video the Mahalla Five cheered by their colleagues following their release. But then the mood changes a little bit in the second and third video as the workers’ militancy is pretty clear, as Muhammad el-Attar said State Security was “pushed to get involved, but didn’t want to”, and as it became clear there was an inclination to disband the strike based on ‘promises’ from security officials that the CEO and the head of the Factory Union Committee will be impeached and demands related to work conditions met. So you find the workers whistling and chanting “A’adeen! A’adeen!” (We are staying, we are staying).. and you can see how strike leaders rush to assure everyone that they are staying also with them, and not giving up, after there were some hints initially that the issue was more or less “settled.”
I received the following message of solidarity from the South African NEHAWU, which represents over 190,000 workers from the Education, Health, Government and Social Welfare sectors, and is part of the COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) which is the biggest federation in the country with 1.9 million members:
Dear comrades,
I am writing a letter of support from National Education and Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU), a large transformative union that has just led an historic strike in the South African Public Service. This strike was unprecedented in the history of SA with more than 17 million work days lost. One million workers withheld their labor power for 31 days to win improvements in wages and conditions of service. What had informed our strike was the implementation of neo-liberal attacks on public services which had degarded quality public service delivery to the South African masses.
We not only support you in this heroic labor struggle but understand the reality of political repression and the difficulties that workers are experiencing in Egypt to exercise their democratic rights to organize, associate and strike.
It has come to our attention that there is an annual Cairo conference and if it is possible please keep us posted on these developments as we would like to participate in this progressive African forum held in the spirit of anti-imerialism and international solidarity.
An injury to one is an injury to all.
Workers united will never be defeated and we send you this message of solidarity in struggle.
Guy Slingsby
Nehawu researcher in organising
Thanks a lot!! I’ll make sure this statement reaches the strikers. Thanks again! We need more of this.
UPDATE: Click on the poster below to download the solidarity message in Arabic.