Tanta Flax and Oil Co strikers carrying a banner that reads: “We Want Our Rights,” while Kamal Abu Eita, president of tax collectors’ free union, calls on workers to strike for their right to unionize.
Tag: tax collectors
Spanish trade unionists come out in support of Egypt’s Free Union
These are the real allies the Egyptian dissidents have in the West. They are NEITHER Obama, NOR European Presidents and Prime Ministers. They are the Western labor unions.
For union rights in Egypt: Solidarity with the new independent trade union
Egypt is a dictatorship which has been controlled for decades by Hosni Mubarak, a pro western leader and a key ally of Israel. His corrupt and repressive regime is currently in crisis.
Over the last few years, the country has been going through a colossal wave of workers’ struggles, beginning with a mass strike in December 2006 at the enormous textile plant in Mahalla, on the Nile delta. The regime’s response to this new movement has been predictable: repression, with arrests and tortures. Even so, they have not been able to break the struggles for union freedom, for democracy, for social justice, in solidarity with Palestine…
Last April, the real estate tax collectors’ union was created in Egypt. Fourteen months of struggles, which began with an 11-day strike, were needed to set up the first free trade union in Egypt since 1957. The Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Employees (URETAE) is the first experience of workers’ organization to be legally recognized in Egypt, beyond the state controlled single union which has dominated union organization in the country for more than half a century. Despite what has been achieved, the Egyptian regime is still working to reverse this fragile and unstable legal recognition. This is not an isolated struggle; it is part of the broader demand for the acceptance of union rights, and social and political change in Egypt.
The undersigned congratulate and express their support for the recently created Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Employees, as well as for the other mobilizations in favor of union freedom, democracy and social justice in Egypt.Solidarity group with Egyptian union struggles (Barcelona)
Cobas trade union
Banesto Workers’ Collective Assembly, Barcelona
Rosa Cañadell, General Secretary, USTEC (Catalan Teachers’ Union)
Laura Pelay, Assistant Secretary to General secretariat, UGT Catalonia
Carles Vallejo, Comissions Obreres, Barcelona Province
Saturnino Mercader, President, Works Committee, Barcelona bus service, TMB
Josep Maria Navarro, President, Sodepau (NGO)
Omar Minguillón, UGT, Iberia, Barcelona
Paco Caballero Fresneda, Diverse activities section, CCOO Catalonia
Ramiro Pàmpols, Retired member, CCOO Catalonia
Àngel Bosqued, Member, CGT
Eva Mª Durán Blanco, Journalist, Barcelona
Robin M. White, Member, CCOO
David Karvala, member of the Barcelona anti war movement
Disgruntled postal workers call for independent union
Sarah Carr reports:
Egypt’s postal workers aired their grievances at a press conference on Saturday, calling for the formation of an independent union.
Some 200 postal workers from governorates throughout Egypt attended the press conference, which was followed by a protest on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate.
Ahmad Allam told the press conference that postal workers “are not frightened” by “the intimidation of state security investigations.” He was referring to the 15-day detention of Mahmoud Faza’a, a postal worker from Ismailia who was arrested after sending a fax to his manager threatening that workers will go on strike if temporary workers are not made permanent.
The demand that the Postal Authority’s approximately 5,000 temporary workers be made permanent is one of three principal demands.
Postal workers are calling for wage parity with workers in the Egyptian Telecommunications Company (ETC) who earn up to three times as much as postal workers.
Workers say that this is inequitable because both ETC employees and Egypt’s 52,000 postal workers belong to the same Ministry of Telecommunications.
“Wages haven’t increased in the last five years while the cost of living has gone up,” said Ahmad Hamdy, head of the Fayoum postal workers’ trade union committee.
“New employees get a starting salary of LE 250 a month,” he added.
Finally, workers are calling for the abrogation of a new appraisal system introduced earlier this year, which they say allows postal workers to be dismissed unfairly.
Officials at the Postal Authority did not comment by press time after promising to do so.
Last month workers in Kafr El-Sheikh began a six-day strike to draw attention to their demands.
“The strike was the initiative of workers in Kafr El-Sheikh who said ‘we have demands.’ The same demands are shared by all workers in all areas,” Hamdy explained.
“We have addressed the general union but unfortunately have had no response,” he continued.
During the press conference workers called for the formation of an independent trade union.
They were supported in this by Kamal Abu Eita, head of the recently formed Union of Real Estate Tax Authority Employees, who drew parallels between the postal workers’ grievances and working conditions, and the battle fought by tax collectors for a free union, which Abu Eita spearheaded.
Abu Eita also called on postal workers to form a strike committee to coordinate future strike action.