Tag: domino effect

55,000 Tax officers on strike; 3,000 demonstrating in Nasr City

Posted on By 3arabawy

Around 3,000 tax officers are now assembling in front of HQ of the Finance Ministry (Imtidad Ramses St., which links Abbassiya with Nasr City). Elsewhere work stopped at virtually all Real Estate Tax offices, with around 55,000 tax officers taking part in the strike calling for improving their work conditions and their inclusion to the Finance Ministry.

The demonstrators in Nasr City have come from Cairo, Giza, Fayoum, Menoufiya, Bani swief, Minya, Daqahliya, Beheira, in buses, and are chanting against Finance Minister Youssef Boutross Ghali, and Ismail Abdel Rasoul, the head of the Real Estate Tax Administration.

More interestingly, according to a journalist who’s present at the protest, the tax officers are also chanting:

مش حنخاف.. مش حنخاف.. مش لاقيين العيش الحاف
We won’t be afraid.. We won’t be afraid.. We can’t find bread
هما مين وإحنا مين؟ هما بياكلوا حمام وفراخ وإحنا الفول دوخنا وداخ
Who are them, and who are we? They eat pigeons and chickens, while we get headaches from beans

The second chant is a popular line from one of Ahmad Fouad Negm’s poems, and both were chanted in last month’s victorious Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, which was widely covered by the local independent and opposition press. The domino effect is at work.

55,000 Real Estate Taxes civil servants to strike Sunday?

Posted on By 3arabawy

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.

“The strikes are a new fashion threatening all of Egypt’s companies”

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Tanta Flax and Oils Company workers scored a victory, suspending their sit-in after they achieved most of their demands.
And as soon as this dispute was settled, 700 textile workers went on strike in Damietta Spinning and Weaving Company demanding their annual profit shares. The chairman of the company, is quoted by Al-Masry Al-Youm as saying: “Strikes have become a fashion that threatens the Egyptian factories”

More details could also be found in this AFP report:

Egypt struggled Tuesday to stem a rising tide of industrial action as officials rushed to end the third strike in a week, the latest challenge to President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Labour ministry officials met employee representatives at the Damietta Spinning and Weaving Co to come to an agreement just 24 hours after workers kicked off their strike, the official MENA news agency said.
Labour Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi told reporters she was eager to “protect the interests and rights of the workers.”
On Saturday, some 24,000 workers at the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Co ended their strike over unpaid profit shares and low wages after the government agreed to meet their demands.
The same pattern followed at the Tanta Linseed and Oil factory, where hundreds of workers struck to demand unpaid profit shares, with their demands swiftly met.
“The strikes are a new fashion threatening all of Egypt’s companies,” the chairman of the Damietta factory told the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm.