As expected, the government-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions is trying to force the public sector workers to vote in the referendum and not follow the opposition’s call for boycott.
Tag: state backed unions
6000 Ghazl el-Mahalla workers resign from General Federation
I visited el-Mahalla el-Kobra on Friday.
Two of the December Ghazl el-Mahalla strike leaders told me that up till now around 6,000 workers have resigned from the government-controlled General Federation of Trade Unions, after the latter’s refusal to impeach the Factory Union Committee. At least 56 resignations a day are sent to the Federation, by registered mail (costing each worker LE2.5 per letter, according to the two labor activists; a huge sum for the workers there believe it or not!).
Labor updates
I received a statement signed by “Workers for Change in Kafr el-Dawar,” calling for establishing “Representatives’ Committees” that would “monitor the performance of the Union Committee (in the factory)” to act as a “democratic liaison between the workers and the Union.”
The statement also called for “expanding the the coordination between workers in companies that went on strike with us, to create the necessary solidarity links and exchange experiences.”
This is a very interesting development. Prior to the strike there was no entity by the name “Workers for Change in Kafr el-Dawar” that existed. This statement clearly shows there are sections (or at least elements) from the largely spontaneous strike leaders are developing politically and pushing for a more sophisticated forms of organizations that can sustain future strike activities. It’s a slow process, but it has started.
In Ghazl el-Mahalla Company, the situation remains unclear, that’ why I did not blog about it earlier. I had received information that the mass resignations from the govt’s General Federation of Trade Unions campaign started roughly a week ago. The workers, as far as I understood, are mailing the union around 50 resignations a day. The General Union of Textile Workers denied it received any, according to a socialist journalist friend of mine who called Said el-Gohary. I’m still uclear about the total number of workers who have already resigned, and what the next step will be. I’ll post more about this in the coming few days, as I get more details.