Tag: politicization

Pending legality: The growing politicization of Egypt’s labor

Posted on By 3arabawy

A year before the parliamentary elections, signs of labor organization are evident, Saif Nasrawi reports for Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition…

Egyptian political activists often joke that their country has only five organized groups: the state’s civil and military bureaucracy, Sufi orders, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Orthodox Church, and the Ahly football club. But a new group might be added to that list soon. With rising labor militancy, the Egyptian workers are increasingly searching for their own free unions to institutionally address their deteriorating economic conditions.
Disillusioned with the 52-year-old, state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU) and facing unemployment due to the government’s privatization plans and the global economic crisis, calls for establishing independent trade unions to defend workers’ rights are finding even greater resonance.
Following the December 2008 founding of the General Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Employees (RETA), several industrial and service sectors’ workers and employees have voiced similar intentions.
“We are currently studying means for the establishment of independent union committees, and we are determined to end our memberships in the Egyptian Trade Union Federation. We hope to realize these goals by utilizing all the legal and constitutional channels available to us,” said Ali Fattouh, a strike leader and driver at the Public Transport Authority (PTA), in an interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Fattouh’s remarks came few days after a two-day strike by about half of the PTA’s 48,000 drivers, fare-collectors and mechanics in August protesting their low wages, unpaid insurance, and harassment by traffic police. PTA workers renewed calls for a strike last week, saying the government has failed to follow through on commitments made in negotiations that ended the August strike.
Plans for creating independent trade unions have also been circulating among Egypt’s school teachers, university professors, Education Ministry administrators, postal workers, pensioners, and air traffic controllers.
“The RETA set the example for other workers and civil servants to follow. It’s indeed the single most important independent political project in 2009,” said Khaled Ali, head of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights.
Once a far fetched idea only discussed behind closed doors in Egyptian leftist parties’ and NGOs’ headquarters, independent trade unionism has gained momentum with Ghazl el-Mahalla Textile Company workers, who launched a series of massive strikes and sit-ins from 2006 to 2008.
In addition to demanding better payment, bonuses, and industrial safety, a few thousand of the 27,000 Ghazl el-Mahalla workers resigned en masse from the EFTU and begun discussing setting up an independent trade union for textile workers.
Independent observers have long accused the officials in EFTU and its affiliated factory union committee of venality, siding with the management during strikes, and fraud within union elections.
“Like the parliament and the government which have gradually turned into puppets in the hands of businessmen, the EFTU has been pulled by the same strings,” Kamal Abu Eita, president of RETA told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
In December 2007, thousands of property tax collectors staged an 11-day sit-in outside the Finance Ministry in downtown Cairo demanding a raise in their salaries. Although the strike was opposed by the General Union of Bank, Insurance and Finance Employees, part of the EFTU, the government conceded to the demands of real estate tax employees by awarding them pay rises of over 325 per cent.
Along with a handful of strike leaders, Abu Eita managed to collect more than 37,000 signatures of the nearly 45,000 property tax employees to form Egypt’s first independent union since 1957.
“Establishing a free union is a natural right granted by the Egyptian constitution and the various international labor treaties which have been ratified by the government,” Abu Eita said, referring to Article 56 of the Egyptian constitution, which guarantees the creation of syndicates and unions on a democratic basis and the International Labor Organization Convention 87 on freedom of association.
Abu Eita’s move to establish an independent union has met considerable challenges, especially from the state-controlled EFTU officials, who blame him with attempting to “politicize” the labor movement and bring about its eventual disintegration.
Makram Labib, head of the state-backed real estate union committee in Daqahliya Governorate, accused Abu Eita of mixing politics with trade unionism. “I gradually sensed that he was trying to transform the real estate tax authority into a political platform,” said Labib, who was another strike leader organizing the December 2007 sit-in.
“As long as our economic demands were fulfilled by the government, calling for the establishment of an independent union is highly unrealistic when the country heads towards the 2010 parliamentary election, which could be followed by a possible transfer of presidential powers,” Labib said, apparently referring to Abu Eita’s declared opposition to a transfer of power from President Hosni Mubarak to his son Gamal.
Abu Eita, a member of the opposition Nasserist Karamah party and an activist in the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kifaya), strongly dismissed the accusation. “Our initial intent was to protest the fact that the majority of union committee officials including [head of EFTU] Hussein Megawar are actually members in the ruling National Democratic Party, therefore we could not have tolerated the idea of mixing our struggle with the agenda of other political parties. It’s purely about our own rights,” Abu Eita said.
Labor experts believe that workers’ struggles have been steadily shifting from narrow economic demands, like better wages, benefits and insurance, to the more political question of defining their relation to the state vis-à-vis the EFTU. Many, however, underscore the influence of political parties in shaping the workers’ agenda.
“Workers are extremely suspicious of political parties trying to take advantage of their own causes, so they always strive to deliberately distance themselves from them,” said Khaled Ali.
“There is also a tactical dimension to trying to avoid the wrath of the government and its security apparatus.”
A senior leader within RETA said that members of the union debated whether to participate in a national strike which was called for by some cyber activists last April to demand better work conditions. “There was an almost unanimous decision to stay away from the strike to escape any accusations of mixing politics with trade unionism,” the RETA leader told Al-Masry Al-Youm on condition of anonymity.
Fearing a domino effect that could trigger aspirations for independence among Egypt’s nearly four million public sector workers, the EFTU launched a counter-strategy to tighten its grip on property tax collectors.
Three weeks ago, the North Giza prosecutor’s office interrogated Abu Eita for trying “to spread false information about the EFTU” and “addressing the public in the name of a trade union without the right to do so,” both of which are misdemeanors carrying sentences of imprisonment for up to six months or a fine of LE 100.
The case against Abu Eita was filed by Farouq Shehata, president of the state-backed General Union of Bank, Insurance and Finance Employees (UBIFE), who accused Abu Eita of illegally representing the property tax collectors.
Attempts to weaken the RETA went further when Megawar decided last month to form a special logistical committee to study the necessary legal procedures to establish a new trade union for all employees working in the Finance Ministry, including the property tax collectors.
According to the EFTU’s critics, Megawar’s plan was intended to de-legitimate RETA, utilizing specific articles within Law 35/1976 which prohibits multiple union memberships.
Article 19 of the law states that no “union committee member is not allowed to join more than one general trade union, even if he practices other professions.”
Six months after RETA members presented their required foundation documents to the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration, the government’s administrative body responsible for authorizing the establishment of trade unions, they still lack legal authorization.
On 15 September, 49 Egyptian rights groups demanded that the ministry recognize RETA as a legal body. “The ministry’s deliberate denial of RETA’s right to exist represents an unjustified burden that forces it to concentrate on establishing its legitimacy rather than defending its members’ interests,” said the groups.
Legalizing RETA will not only shield it against the state’s intervention, but is also a conditional requirement for it to open a bank account through which membership fees can be collected.
Rahma Refaet, the program director of the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, argued that the government lacks a coherent strategy for dealing with the challenge imposed by RETA in particular and the entire labor movement in general. “Cracking down on workers by means of arrest, intimidation, suspension from work could be highly risky and expensive,” Refaet said.
“With Egypt’s rising economic liberalization and integration into the global market, some politicians within the NDP have started to realize the importance of creating a mechanism for collective labor bargaining.”
Refaet clarified that the workers’ distrust of their undemocratic and unrepresentative union committees usually leaves them with the option of going into strike as their first and only negotiation venue.
Estimates of financial losses incurred during work stoppages, sit-ins and strikes are not available, but with over 1600 incidents of labor protest that took place since 2006, it’s reasonable to assume that they exceeded hundreds of millions of Egyptian pounds.
With Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif’s plan to privatize government-owned industries and distribute stock in them to citizens for free—a move many believe is a hoax to do away with more than 100 public sector companies—labor’s desire for independent trade unions is not expected to wane.
“If socialism cannot be built in one country, a truly independent trade unionism cannot survive in only one sector,” Abu Eita emphasized.
“The continuation of selling public sector factories, the rising inflation, and the inefficiency of EFTU, are but factors which will perpetuate the workers’ struggle in Egypt.”

As Mubarak comes to Washington, labor unrest surges at home

Posted on By 3arabawy

A Time Magazine feature on the Egyptian strike wave, that includes an interview with me:

Saad al-Husseini may be a member of a banned political organization, but he’s feeling the wind at his back. At the entrance to al-Mahalla al-Kubra, one of Egypt’s largest industrial towns, the tall, bearded “independent” Member of Parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood – whose members are regularly arrested and tortured by the state – hops into a car, buoyed by signs of local dissent. “There are two strikes in Mahalla today,” he says, cheerfully. “We will show you.”
The strikes involving several dozen workers in the Nile Delta town about 60 miles north of Cairo are just the latest in over a dozen that have already occurred the same week – and that’s just in Mahalla. A number of similar strikes are underway throughout the area, in what is shaping up to be another long, hot summer of discontent in the Nile Delta.
The densely populated Delta has some of Egypt’s best farmland, and is also the country’s industrial heartland. Mahalla, where tens of thousands of striking textile workers have won their demands on multiple occasions over the past three years, has become a symbol of labor militancy. Many of the strikes are called by the Independent Textile Workers’ League, which operates like a union but without official recognition. “Since December 7, 2006, when the workers of [Misr Spinning and Weaving Company] factory went on strike, that was a historical day. It was the first and the biggest strike in Egypt. And the strikes haven’t stopped since,” says Husseini.
Strikes, sit-ins, and factory occupations are technically illegal in Egypt – except in the unlikely event that they were authorized by the government-run Egyptian Trade Union Federation. But legal restraints have not stopped workers from laying down their tools; analysts attribute the phenomenon to the declining living standards that have accompanied the government’s market-oriented economic policies, combined with the absence of democratic channels of recourse in President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. By some estimates, Egypt has seen at least 250 strike actions this year alone, organized locally and often featuring women workers playing a leading role. “Everything in the country is expensive, and most workers work two jobs, and still, it’s not enough,” says Wael Habib, a Mahalla strike leader.
The unrest comes at a critical time for Egyptian politics. President Mubarak, who has run an iron-fisted police state since 1981 and is meeting President Obama in Washington on Tuesday, is now 81 years old, and the press is buzzing with speculation about imminent succession – most likely by his son, Gamal. While some see the Nile Delta strike wave as nothing more than a fight for daily bread, others say they’re a portent of what’s to come.
“They were chanting against Hosni Mubarak, against Suzanne Mubarak, they were chanting against Gamal Mubarak. Outright chants,” says Hossam al-Hamalawy, a left-wing journalist and labor activist, of recent strikes in the Delta. “They had 20,000 people marching for an hour in the city of Mahalla demanding that Mubarak will be overthrown, and then people say that these workers are not political?” Even so, says Beinin, most of Egypt’s strike leaders don’t belong to political parties, and doubts that Egypt’s opposition groups will be able to channel workers’ dissent into a unified push for political change.
The strike weapon has been used by blue collar workers and urban professionals alike, often using social networking sites as organizing and publicity tools. And while many Egyptians remain apathetic about their ability to affect change through national elections – widely dismissed by local and international monitors as rigged to keep Mubarak’s part in power – many have found in the strike weapon a means of making the government more responsive, particularly to demands for pay raises and the payment of previously promised bonuses and dividends.
“Corrupt general elections are a major phenomenon here. There are human rights violations and arrests for no reason . . . There are huge economic monopolies, and the country’s land is distributed to relatives and friends of the men in power,” says Husseini. “For all of these reasons, the [political] opposition and the strikes are growing.” The Egyptian government has accused the Brotherhood of instigating the strike, but labor experts such as Stanford historian Joel Beinin say there’s no evidence of that beyond the solidarity offered by some Brotherhood individuals, like Husseini, who hail from blue collar constituencies. Many of the Brotherhood’s leaders are actually businessmen with no inclination to promote the development of a labor movement that could challenge their own interests.
“This is democracy,” says Hamalawy. “This is people taking control of their lives and their livelihoods and their incomes, and they’re just telling the powers that be that they cannot just keep on dictating this bad situation forever. I am sorry if journalists are only accustomed to democracy that is conducted in the parliament, which is a sham at the end of the day . . . What’s happening in these industrial urban centers, that’s the real politics.”
Indeed, the rising tide of labor unrest has prompted some local politicians and activists to take note. Husseini says the government has sought opposition support for its policies of privatization of industry, “But we say that this is impossible. We want a big industrial sector owned by the country, so that it guarantees security for the country.”
And the opposition’s response is to tie the aspirations of striking workers to their political situation, by pointing out that their plight is based on their lack of democratic rights. A general strike that broke out in Mahalla in April 2008, which resulted in bloody clashes with the police, were part of a nationwide protest action against the regime. Although some optimistic activists say Mubarak’s power is already cracking, it remains to be seen whether mass action in the workplace and outside will have any effect on shaping the post-Mubarak era.
“Hopefully the coming Egyptian uprising is going to bring about a radical regime. A regime that’s committed to the demands of the people,” says Hamalawy. “I think it’s the people who at the end of the day are going to choose which scenario to go forward.” Presumably, the security forces that have kept Mubarak, and before him Sadat and Nasser in power for more than a half century, have other ideas.

Union eyes the Silver Bullet

Posted on By 3arabawy

An IPS report by Cam McGrath, that includes an interview with me on the fight for free unions in Egypt:

CAIRO, Aug 18 (IPS) – Property tax collectors from across Egypt gathered last week in Cairo to protest fresh attempts by the official state trade union to undermine their independent syndicate.
“By soul, by blood…we will fight for our fund”, they chanted, accusing state union leaders of attempting to “hijack” their worker retirement fund.
It is the latest charge in the escalating feud between the mammoth Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) and members of the newly formed Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Employees (URETAE), Egypt’s first independent trade union since 1957.
Property tax collectors established the independent union in April – a bold move that raised hackles at ETUF, the state-controlled body that has monopolised union organization and worker affairs for more than half a century. ETUF officials have vehemently denounced the unaffiliated worker syndicate, declaring it an “illegal entity” and pressuring authorities at all levels to disavow its existence.
Over 37,000 of the country’s 55,000 property tax collectors are reported to have joined the independent union, which was formed after tax authority workers grew frustrated by the lack of support they received from pro- government union leaders during a strike in 2007. The 11-day sit-in ended when state officials conceded to workers’ demands for better pay.
“We slept on the streets to secure our rights once before, and we’re ready to do it again if that’s what it takes,” says URETAE president Kamal Abu Eita.
The struggle for an independent union did not end with its creation; members have had to defend it. Abu Eita accuses state union leaders of carrying out a campaign of harassment and intimidation against the free union’s staff and members, including several cases of physical assault.
Property tax collectors complain that while they pay subscription fees to URETAE, the government has refused to accept their resignation from ETUF, and is still deducting the state union’s dues from their monthly salaries. Moreover, ETUF lawyers have filed corruption charges against the independent union, accusing its leaders of soliciting illegal funds in the form of membership fees.
“It is forbidden for a union to collect money unless it has been established in accordance with Egypt’s union laws,” a senior ETUF official told IPS. “Therefore, all fees collected by this syndicate are illegal.”
Abu Eita says the independent union filed all the required registration paperwork at the labor ministry on Apr. 21. The government had 30 days to challenge the establishment of the union in court, but did not.
The latest showdown came after finance minister Youssef Boutros Ghali issued a decree Jul. 28 to establish a social welfare fund for URETAE members. The following week, reportedly at the behest of ETUF chairman Hussein Megawer, the minister revised the decree, assigning the management of the fund to the National Trade Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Affairs, one of 23 ETUF subsidiaries.
Tarek Mostafa, a tax collector and the independent union’s treasurer, vowed to keep the fund out of government hands.
“For more than a year and a half our union has been struggling to create this social welfare fund, and everything was financed from the members’ own pockets,” he said in an interview to the independent El-Masry El-Youm newspaper. “Attributing ownership of the fund to ETUF means they will control everything. The fund’s assets are almost 1.12 billion Egyptian pounds (216 million dollars). Now that it has cash, they want to get their hands on it.”
The ongoing struggle for the recognition and rights of the independent union is part of a wave of labor unrest that has rippled across Egypt for nearly three years. In December 2006, more than 27,000 workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in the northern industrial city Mahalla El- Kubra defied the state’s ban on unauthorised labor stoppages and went on strike over unpaid bonuses.
The industrial action kicked off a wave of wildcat strikes across the country – involving everyone from textile workers to train conductors to oil company employees.
Strikes can be contained – pro-government union leaders, riot police and hired thugs see to that. But labor experts say the formation of an independent union represents a more corrosive threat to the 28-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, as it erodes the power of state’s primary structure for controlling and mobilizing the masses.
“The state-backed general federation (ETUF) is not a labor union in the proper sense, rather it’s the arm of the state for controlling working class movements,” says Hossam El-Hamalawy, journalist and labor activist. “When it comes to parliamentary elections, the government may strike deals with the Muslim Brotherhood, or sometimes turn a blind eye to opposition…but with general federation elections, which happen every five years, the government will never (relinquish) a single seat.”
According to El-Hamalawy, ETUF elections are carefully orchestrated to ensure that union heads are loyal to Mubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP). The federation, in turn, busses workers to polling stations during general elections to vote for the NDP, mobilizes workers for pro-government rallies, and suppresses strikes to ensure that the state has a steady supply of cheap labor.
“Once you start getting cracks in the federation, you can start talking about the end of the dictatorship,” he asserts.
El-Hamalawy highlights the historical role that independent unions played in the political transformation of authoritarian regimes in South Korea and Poland. “Getting free unions was always the silver bullet,” he says. “When free unions strike, mobilize mass protests and get the machines to stop working – that’s when you hit (the regime) where it hurts the most.”
Opinion is divided whether the launch of the independent union has enough force to spill over into other sectors. Analysts point out that in the four months since the property tax collectors registered their union, no other professional group has followed suit. Employees of the textile and postal sectors have called for free unions, and threatened to impeach local labor leaders, but divided leadership and heavy police crackdowns have thwarted any progress.
“The question of free trade unions has been on the agenda in recent years, and will remain so,” says labor expert Ragui Assaad. “Whether this is the experiment that will actually start the process rolling, I am not sure – it very much depends on how strong the reaction from the state will be.”
So far, police have allowed striking property tax collectors to demonstrate in cordoned off areas outside government buildings. But the presence of several hundred riot police and the Mubarak regime’s track record of using force to suppress labor unrest make a violent confrontation likely.