Hossam el-Hamalawy
From Reuters:
The proportion of Egyptians living in absolute poverty has risen despite relatively rapid economic growth this decade, the head of United Nations operations in Egypt said on Wednesday.
Between 2000 and 2005 the absolute poverty rate rose to 19.6 percent from 16.7 percent of the population, U.N. resident coordinator James Rawley told a news conference.
“One in every five Egyptians cannot meet their basic living needs,” he added, quoting a survey completed in June.
Labor sources in Egypt informed me around 55,000 Real Estate Taxes civil servants may start a national strike on Sunday, demanding improvement in their work conditions, similar to their counterparts in the other government civil service sectors. No more details are available yet. If this goes through, however, the event will be of even more significance than the September 27,000-strong Ghazl el-Mahalla strike. It’s not only about the numbers of strikers which are roughly double, but it’s also about:
1-The national scale of the industrial action, that will involve the Lower and Upper Egyptian provinces simultaneously
2-The civil servants sector is an under reported story, although according to a report by the Workers’ Coordination Committee they had the lion share in industrial actions from January to July of this year. So, in six months, the report documented 386 industrial actions: 141 among Civil Servants, 121 in the Public Sector, while 106 in the private sector.
I’ll be waiting to receive more updates about the situation, but I hope fellow bloggers and journalists are already watching closely and will keep us in the loop.
I received a new report by the Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch, for the whole of September, citing 94 industrial conflicts in 86 locations. Around 50,000 workers took part in strikes, sit-ins or protests; while another 170,000 workers have either threatened industrial action or, according to the EWTUW, are expected to do so soon.