Tag: unions

Stop attacks on trade unionists

Posted on By 3arabawy

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

Solidarity needed with Socialist trade unionist

Posted on By 3arabawy

In a new attack on labor activists, the government-backed members of the Union Committee for the Giza Labor Directorate civil servants have summoned Socialist trade unionist Fatma Ramadan for interrogation today, threatening to freeze her union membership, part of a witch-hunt against dissident trade unionists.

The government-backed members have officially requested from the higher union body, the General Union of Administrative Services, to freeze Fatma’s union membership for: “inciting the employees,” “contacting the media,” “adopting illegal means of communications” (as Fatma led a campaign of petitions, directed to the Labor Minister herself, over the work conditions of the civil servants), and “distributing leaflets.”

UPDATE: The Workers’ Solidarity Committee issued a statement denouncing the crackdown.

Workers take to the streets: The strikes of 2007

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily News Egypt…

In 2007 Egypt witnessed an unprecedented level of labor unrest as workers from textile factories to public transport to tax collectors went on strike, mainly over low wages and poor working conditions.
According to the Egyptian Workers and Trade Union Watch (EWTUW) there were over 580 industrial actions this year alone.
The Egyptian and much of the international press were awash with footage and images of angry workers holding sit-in protests, marching through the streets and reading out demands. The various strikes were particularly sensational given the general silence over labor issues in Egypt, where independent trade unions are illegal.
Many analysts pointed to the anti-governmental nature of the strikes, noting workers’ demands for the legalization of independent trade unions and the halt of neo-liberal economic reforms, and suggested that they doubled as a form of political protest on a scale that organizations like the Kefaya Movement for Change have failed to achieve.
The textile industry saw a series of strikes in 2007 throughout the Nile Delta.
By far the largest in terms of size and publicity was at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Al-Mahalla Al-Kobra. Unrest at this factory first began in late 2006, inspiring a wave of similar strikes in the following months.
After workers had seemingly succeeded in securing from the government increased pay and an investigation into alleged corruption within the plant’s leadership, their demands were never met.
In September this year they walked off the job again and erected a tent-city inside the gates of the plant to support their 25,000-strong protest. For five days groups of employees were televised beating drums and chanting slogans demanding the dismissal of the chairman of the company Mahmoud El-Gebali.
The government carried out this demand at the end of November, and also agreed to follow through with the guarantees it had made in December of the previous year about wage rises, bonus payments and improving working conditions.
“The workers are very happy, this is a big victory for us,” Muhammad El Attar, one of the leaders of the Mahalla movement, told Daily News Egypt. “But our demands haven’t all been fulfilled yet. This is not over.”
Away for the factories, in January railway workers prevented a first-class train from leaving from Cairo to Alexandria, and threatened a national stoppage until the government agreed to their demands. Throughout the strike Metro workers slowed their trains from 55 to 20 miles per hour in solidarity.
Metro workers were involved again on May 1, when almost 3,000 transportation workers including bus drivers, ticket collectors and maintenance technicians occupied the Nasr and Fateh bus stations in Nasr City preventing the use of public buses to demand wage increases. The following day 1,000 Metro workers with similar demands joined in. “I can barely afford to feed my family,” one Metro Authority employee and father of three told the press. “My monthly salary, which comes to about $80, doesn’t last 10 days.”
Two days of subsequent negotiations resulted in a promise from the transportation ministry that workers’ complaints would be looked into.
In early December, Railway safety technicians maintained a protest of about 50 men in Ramses station to protest low wages and working conditions, and blamed station masters and higher management for Egypt’s notoriously poor railway safety record. Some of their demands were met
Soon the striking fever reached Egypt’s civil servants. Following a series of strikes that began in April, about 55,000 Real Estate tax collectors, shut down their offices and went on strike. Hundreds of them from all over the country protested outside the Cabinet office in downtown Cairo early December for 10 days demanding increased wages.
They demanded that the Real Estate Tax Authority, which is now affiliate to the local municipalities, be returned to the Ministry of Finance, as it was prior to 1974. They also called for the resignation of the head of the Real Estate Tax Authority, Ismail Abdel Rasoul, whom they claim had intentionally misinformed the government with regards to workers’ pay rates.