Month: May 2009

Friday’s meeting at the Center for Socialist Studies can be considered a great step forward in the fight for free unions in Egypt.

I had blogged before expressing my optimism re the latest push by the radical left and the free union leaders towards more national coordination between strike leaders and militant labor campaigners on the one hand, and the (what has now become) centers of established hotbed of labor activism (most notably: the tax collectors and Mahalla). The whole point of the scheme is try to kick-start free unions in whatever sectors that look ripe for such a move, creating a national entity that can liaise between different industrial actions and provide urgent solidarity  on behalf of victimized labor rights campaigners… In other words, we are pushing for the establishment of a national federation of trade unions that will run parallel to (and hopefully will destroy) the corrupt, disgusting piece of government clientalistic filth called the Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions.

Out of the agreed monthly coordination meetings, the “Workers’ Preparatory Committee” has been born. I hope I managed to translate the name from Arabic correctly: اللجنة التحضيرية للعمال

The choice of the name is not coincidental, and very much significant. The involved workers and activists are well aware of their size and weight in the current class struggle. It is true they are fighting to establish a national labor federation, but they are not in lala land like some who have decided to already declare “themselves” as the national union on Facebook or their fax machines. What our activists are doing is “preparing” the initial steps towards building that national union, workplace by workplace, in the urban centers within their reach and which have already witnessed industrial actions. They prove their credibility to their fellow workers by transferring the experiences of the tax collectors‘ success, and by solidarity campaigns with strikers and victimized workers.

The meeting on Friday was packed with civil servants, workers, activists, and strike leaders, including factories and sectors that are currently witnessing attacks by the management, sackings, detentions, intimidation. The participants voted and agreed on a set of demands to mobilize for within their circles: a) Re-nationalizing the privatized companies and businesses facing liquidation, b) A national minimum wage of LE1200 a month, c) An immediate halt to victimization of strikers, d) The right to form free unions outside the umbrella of the Mubarak-run Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions.

The Workers’ Preparatory Committee has already started moving in solidarity with the Nile textile strikers, the Egyptian Pharmaceutical Co. workers and the postal strikers.