The Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch issued a case study report on the civil servants in the Labor Ministry’s Giza Labor Directorates. The report also spoke about the witch-hunt Socialist Trade Unionist Fatma Ramadan is currently a victim of.
Here is also a letter from the Land Center for Human Rights to the Minister of Labor denouncing the crackdown on independent trade unionists.
The Center for Socialist Studies issued a statement on the victory of the Real Estate Tax Collectors’ Strike, asserting this will open new doors for the struggle of professionals and civil servants in other government sectors.
I received also some photos of the strikers celebrating their victory following the negotiations with the Finance Minister, taken by labor journalist Mostafa Bassiouny.
Another fight is also looming in the air… Once again it’s over the unions… The strike all throughout was run by the Higher Committee for the Real Estate Tax Collectors’ Strike, headed by the dynamic Kamal Abu Eita and in theory included one representative from each of the country’s 26 provinces. In effect, from seven to 15 members including Abu Eita were the real force in the committee as they were present together in Cairo, while the others were consulted over the phone. Where were the state-sponsored Union Committee members? They were not involved. And in a humiliating proof of their illegitimacy and lack of credibility they were not even invited to the final negotiations between the Finance Minister and members of the Higher Committee for the Real Estate Tax Collectors’ Strike, the true representatives of the civil servants.
[The state-sponsored union bureaucrats standing in the street, while the strike leaders and the Finance Minister negotiate an agreement. Photo by Mostafa Bassiouny.]
The Workers’ Solidarity Committee, Workers for Change, and the Workers’ Coordination Committee issued a joint statement denouncing the crackdown on Fatma Ramadan and activist trade unionists:
No to the witch-hunt against trade unionists
The undersigned organizations denounce the new wave of violations by the Egyptian state against labor organizers and trade unionists, and totally reject the move by government-backed trade unionists to freeze the membership of Fatma Ramadan Abul Ma’ati, a trade unionist at the Giza Labor Directorate, after she started collecting signatures from the civil servants in the governorate on a petition demanding the employees’ rights. Fatma had started the campaign after the government-backed trade unionists refused to present those demands to the officials so as “not to cause troubles.” She had also been barred from running for elections at the “Services Society for the Labor Ministry’s Civil Servants in Giza” for “security reasons,” as she was told.
Such assaults on trade unionists are strongly rejected by the undersigned, who also condemn the sacking of Aisha Abdel Aziz Abu Samada of el-Hennawi Tobacco Co, Ashraf Abdel Wanis of Fayoum Sugar Co, Said Shehata of Bolivara, ten workers from Trust, and eight others from Anvet.
Such witch-hunt campaign launched by the state to intimidate the labor leaders will not be successful in suppressing this promising social movement which will only be content when all stolen rights from the workers are returned..The Workers’ Solidarity Committee
Workers for Change
The Workers’ Coordination Committee