Tag: هيثم محمدين

I attended yesterday a small celebration gathering hosted by the local branch of the Nasserist Party in Ezbet el-Nakhl, north of Cairo, that included some of the Public Transport strike leaders, activist lawyers and journalists.

Abdel Ghani, Imbaba Garage: “The Mahalla workers and the textile strikes taught all Egyptian workers how to strike and to stage sit-ins.”

Samir, Giza Branch: “We are ready to strike again if the government does not fulfill the agreement.”

Wael, Nasr City’s el-Mostaqbal Garage: “The (state-backed) General Union (of Transport Workers) belongs to the government, not the workers. We need a new union. We already started our campaign to collect signatures from the workers to impeach the members of the union committee. If the General Union does not accept the impeachment requests, we will launch an independent union like what the real estate tax collectors did.”

Socialist Lawyer, Haitham Mohammadein, the legal consultant for the Union of Real Estate Authority employees: “There is a lot to be learned from the experience of the Real Estate Tax Collectors. The government claims the General Federation of Trade Unions is the only representative of the workers. That is not true. This Federation represents the government interests only.  The tax collectors understood this fact well, and the law was on their side. The government breaches the constitution and the international conventions it signed by restricting your right to form a new independent union.”