KPFA 94.1 Radio Channel interviewed me yesterday on Egypt’s Winter of Labor Discontent.
Tag: neoliberalism
Egypt’s hot summer
From the Economist:
BY THIS time next year, Egyptians will no longer be living under an official state of emergency, the government has promised. The news can only be welcome. Except for a few brief interludes, “emergency” laws have been in force ever since the 1952 coup that replaced the constitutional monarchy of King Farouk with an authoritarian republic. Under Hosni Mubarak, who assumed Egypt’s presidency in 1981, activists have frequently charged police with abusing such laws to practise arbitrary arrest and torture.
But during this unusually hot summer, Egyptians may rightly wonder which emergency their government is talking about. For some, such as thousands of Bedouin in northern Sinai who have mounted sit-ins to protest against mass crackdowns on terrorist suspects, police brutality is indeed a priority. Yet a growing number of Egyptians seem unusually incensed about a range of other troubles.
Citizens in five of the country’s 26 governorates, for instance, have been suffering a dire shortage of drinking water. Some villagers have blocked roads and demonstrated outside government offices in what the opposition press has dubbed a “revolution of the thirsty”. Others are angry about the failure of wages to keep up with inflation. Labour activists have documented some 350 protests this year, including strikes by state-employed teachers, postmen and train drivers. This number is not large in a country of 75m, but as public-sector workers have traditionally been mobilized behind the ruling party independent labor action is a disturbing novelty.
With wages for unskilled workers barely averaging $75 a month, with many commodities that were once subsidised by the state now being sold at market prices and with state health and education now only nominally free, Egyptians feel squeezed. Inflation officially peaked at 12% last spring, and has now declined. But independent economists note that food prices have risen 25% since last August and that queues for bread, a commodity that remains subsidised, have lengthened ominously as pinched consumers revert to relying on the staple food.
Egyptians still feeling the effects of last year’s hike in fuel prices
From the Daily Star Egypt:
“Ever since last year’s increase in fuel prices, I spend an extra LE 8 each day on gasoline consumption alone, and the majority of customers does not want to bear that increase,” said Atteya Eid, a Cairo taxi driver.
“It wrecked my living,” Eid said.
Last year, the government abruptly raised the prices of gasoline and oil products in an attempt to reduce the sizeable budget deficit — forecast at more than 9 percent of GDP in the 2006-07 fiscal years.
Amid last year’s Revolution Day Anniversary celebrations, the price of 90-octane fuel rose 30 percent from LE 1 per liter to LE 1.30, while the price of diesel — widely used in trucks and minibuses — rose 25 percent from LE 0.60 per liter to LE 0.75.
The new prices took affect on the Friday preceding the July 23 celebrations, when many Egyptians escape Cairo’s heat and flock to the North Coast for the long weekend. The government had strategically marked its calendar so that the surge would pass smoothly without public unrest.
A year on, B- and C-class citizens as well as taxi-drivers suffer the most from the rising energy costs. “On a daily-basis, problems arise with customers, particularly [government] employees,” said Eid. “Some customers consider the hike and increase the fare without being asked, while others — also overburdened with soaring prices — refuse to pay one extra piaster.”
…. A further reduction in energy subsidies is currently in the works. Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali said earlier this month that the government planned to announce fresh cuts in energy subsidies within the next three to four months, a step that will further stoke inflation.