One group of workers come to protest, meet Morsi, some leave after promises, others continue to sit in as a new group of workers arrive to join the protests.

Elsewhere in the country, the industrial actions continue, and in cases workers are emboldened enough to start storming government buildings like what happened in Menoufiya yesterday.

The strike curve has already been going up. The Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, for example, put the number of labor protests and industrial actions in the first half of May: 137 labor protests and industrial actions. The figure went down in the second half of May to 69, thanks to the presidential elections. And continued sliding in the fist half of June to 38, only to start increasing again in the second half of June to 119.

This post is tackling briefly the labor situation, since I’m short of time. But you can add other factors that accelerate the critical situation Morsi is sliding into, including the MB dismal performance in Tahrir with the suspension of the sit-in, the scandalous inauguration in presence of Tantawi and the SCAF generals, his failure to secure the swift release of prisoners sentenced by military courts.

Morsi has inflated the expectations of the public, but in reality he will not be able to deliver, because of the continuation of SCAF control on the one hand, and the opportunistic politics of the MB leadership.

An hot industrial summer is already in the making. Follow @EgyStrikes for continuous updates on labor protests.

1- Ridding the workplace from the corrupt managers, who are in most of the cases personnel affiliated with the Mubarak’s regime and its neoliberal program.

2- Job security. Most of the Egyptian workers spend years in the workplace without contracts, though social security and taxes are still deducted from their monthly salaries or daily wages.

As thousands of workers continue to strike in the Upper Egyptian sugar refineries over pay, work conditions, as well as purging the management from the remnants of Mubarak’s regime. The strikers, seen in the videos, also accuse the management of clientalism to the US and Israel, and chant for “open strikes till the fall of the regime.” The workers also use the same slogans as those of Tahrir: “We will leave. He’s the one who should leave,” but referring to the mini-Mubarak they have in their firm.

The current mass strikes are political in essence, not just economic. While activists are mobilizing thousands in Tahrir to denounce the military tribunals, the workers in the hundreds of thousands are in effect breaking the anti-strike law which refers strikes to military courts. The common denominator between all the strikes, though they still lack a centralized command or coordinating body, is the purging of the company management from corrupt, regime affiliated figures. The strikers are even raising questions about global politics, anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism, during their industrial actions.

The strike wave constitutes the only hope for the Egyptian revolution.

Egyptian Independent Union Federation
28 June 2011

In light of the growing controversy about the independent trade unions and malicious accusations and allegations aimed at undermining the Egyptian workers’ movement and the trade unions which it created, we, the representatives of the independent unions, are signing this statement of the fundamental principles on which they are being built and on which trade unions which represent workers are founded.

1. The independent unions have appeared in Egypt ending an era during which trade union work has been monopolised by the state and the ruling party, and this is due to the struggle of the Egyptian workers and their sacrifices, and nobody can claim otherwise. At the same time we extend our thanks and greetings to all those who support the principles of trade union freedom and the right to organize so long as this support is without conditions.

2. The independent unions confirm their independence from all political parties, official institutions and organizations, human rights organizations, and individuals. The independent unions confirm that they only follow the wishes of the general assemblies of their members and that the principle of independence is a general principle which applies to all without exception. In the same vein, the independent unions assert that only elected representatives from the base of the unions have the right to speak on behalf of the trade unions and declare their positions, and that no outside parties have the right to do so, unless those positions have been agreed by the elected representatives of the independent unions.

3. The independent unions depend for their funding on the contributions of their members and will not accept financial support from any other source at home or abroad. The general assemblies have complete authority for the financial supervision of the unions. We affirm that this principle self-reliance and self-funding is an inseparable part of the principle of independence on which the unions were founded.

4. We affirm that this principle of independence dates from before the revolution and that the revolution came to bless this perspective and to issue laws to protecting this same principle, the first of which was the constitutional declaration on the freedom to form unions the announcement of the principle of trade union freedoms. This declaration contributed to Egypt’s name being removed from the ILO blacklist of countries violating workers’ rights as did the draft law on trade union freedoms. We affirm that the principle of independence is not tied to an individual or a government but is a fundamental right of all of who work for a wage in this country, and they will not give it up in any circumstances.

5. The independent unions completely reject any form of normal relations with the Zionist enemy, as they reject all forms of co-operation with any person or organization who is involved in normalisation or is calling for normalisation. We affirm our complete support for the right of the Arab Palestinian people to create an independent state in the whole of Palestine, and their right to use whatever means of resistance to achieve their rights. We affirm also that one of the principal reasons for our rejection of the old Egyptian Trade Union Federation is its subservience to the state and the National Democratic Party, and its participation in a visit to occupied Jerusalem and its failure to take any position opposing the policy of normalisation, such as the QIZ [Qualified Industrial Zones] Agreement and the gas supply agreement and other policies which the Egyptian Trade Union Federation by its silence supported while the Egyptian workers’ movement rejected them and was resisting them.

6. The independent unions value the Arab people’s struggle for freedom and social justice.

Long live the Egyptian Revolution!
Eternal glory to the Martyrs!

Egyptian Independent Union Federation

Signatories:
1. The Real Estate Tax Authority Union
2. The General Public Transport Authority Workers’ Union
3. The General Union of Civil Aviation Pilots
4. The General Union of Builders and Woodworkers
5. The Egyptian Peasants’ Union
6. The General Union of Antiquities Workers
7. The General Union of Sales Tax Workers
8. The General Union of Health Sciences
9. The General Independent Union of Teachers
10. The General Union of Communications Workers
11. The Manshiyet al-Bakri Hospital Workers’ Union
12. Du’aa Hospital Union
13. The General Union of Workers in the Ministry of Labour
14. The Media Production Workers Union
15. The General Union of Pensioners

Original statement in Arabic here.

أمي:رايح فين يبني؟ أنا:رايح الجامعة يا ماما و بعدين رايح مظاهرة. أمي:طيب ما تتأخرش علشان نتفرج علي أيمن نور بليل علي أون تيفي#PostJan25 #fb

— CVirus (@CVirus) April 28, 2011

My friend Muhammad tweeting about a conversation between him and his mother:
My Mom: Where are you going son?
Me: I’m going to university, then heading to a protest.
My Mom: Ok, don’t be late, Dr. Ayman Nour will be on ONTV tonight.

Compare this conversation to pre-25 Jan times. One had to lie to his parents about going to protests. Parents wouldn’t really care that much whether some “politician” showed up on TV speaking or not. And probably mothers would urge their children to come back home on time to catch a soap opera on TV with the rest of family members.

Everyone is “political” these days. That’s what revolution does to people.

Cab drivers stage protests in front of the parliament, denouncing the finance minister, chanting: “We are the victims of the National Democratic Party.”

The current strike wave is not just about economic demands, but politics is also involved. The strike wave is also reshaping the consciousness of sections of the Egyptian working class.

You find a civil servant who was not involved politically, but suddenly joins a strike action over work conditions, and exhibits previously unknown (even to himself) organizing skills that elevates him to the strike leadership. Once the strike is suspended in victory, this civil servant together with his comrades goes ahead to build the country’s first independent trade union in half a century, and is taking an active role in political life, showing for all sorts of protests over democratic issues and helping spread the free union experience of the tax collectors to other workers in other sectors.

This is just one example. Another example could be seen above in the video, where workers from Tanta Flax, Amonsito and Mahalla denounce the Israeli deadly attack on the Gaza aid convoy. These workers started their fight over local grievances related their own specific factories over the past few years. But by time their consciousness have gone through transformation, helping some of them to look at the bigger picture, to start linking their factory grievances with the overall state policy, to start drawing parallels between the state’s policy towards them, with that of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians, and to start organizing, like in the video above, in support of the Palestinians while continuing fighting for their own specific demands.

I dislike it when someone tells me this strike wave is not political. This strike wave is changing the lives of those millions of workers taking part in it, and there lies the hope of changing the system.

Security cracks down on Amonsito textile workers, Sunday 23 May, in front of the parliament.

Listen to the worker speaking at 2:33, drawing parallels between the state crackdown on the Amonsito workers to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.