Category: Blog

In a new report, The Land Center for Human Rights estimates there were 323 industrial actions in 2007: 179 sit-ins, 74 strikes, 49 demonstrations, 2 illegal assemblies, 19 silent stands in protest.. The same center had put the number of labor industrial actions in 2006 at 222.

The estimate conflicts sharply with others issued by labor activists. The second issue of Egyptian Workers and Social Resistance put the number of industrial actions from January to July 2007 alone at 368: 100 Sit-ins, 109 Strikes, 33 Demonstrations, 126 illegal assemblies accompanied by a short-period work stoppages. [Please note when you are reading the original copy of the report posted online that there is a typo: “368” is written “386”, but when you do the math the number of industrial actions add up only to 368.]

While a booklet by the Center for Socialist Studies, coauthored by Mostafa Bassiouny and Omar Said, says (page 13) there were more than 650 industrial actions from 7 December 2006 to 23 September 2007 (i.e., between the two Mahalla strikes).