Tag: unions

Doctors Syndicate calls on private clinics to strike today

Posted on By 3arabawy

Today, the Doctors’ Syndicate has called for a national strike over job reform package. Well, not really.. The syndicate called on “private clinics” to shut down, but that won’t include govt or private hospitals… i.e., the syndicate is calling on doctors who are financially well enough to own a clinic to close it down for the day and go home to snooze instead. Moreover, the syndicate stated the participation in the strike was “not mandatory.” In other words, the pressures exerted by the government is almost ZERO!

The NDP and MB leadership of the Doctors’ Syndicate continue their best to diffuse the rank and file anger and curb any militant action vis a vis Nazif’s govt over the reform packages. After aborting last year’s national strike, exerting the syndicate’s time and resources, not in lobbying for the doctors’ demands but in, confronting and isolating lobby groups like Doctors Without Rights, the syndicate’s leadership, namely the NDP’s Hamdy el-Sayyed and Essam el-Erian of the Muslim Brothers, have been forced to raise their rhetoric, making symbolic moves like the small protest they held in front of the Finance Ministry (and avoiding any direct confrontations with Nazif).

Doctors Without Rights group has already criticized the syndicate’s move. The group, composed of leftist and independent doctors, have been pushing hard since last year for a national strike, with a set of demands that decorate the header of their blog. Unfortunately the balance of power hasn’t always been on their favor. The group’s mobilizational power is not strong enough to take on the shaky NDP-MB alliance. They have been instrumental to the series of protests and sit-ins spring 2008 and in providing an alternative to the MB and NDP in voicing the anger of the majority of the doctors, but so much building on the ground is still needed. At best, the group has been able to effectively mobilize only few hundreds. I wish them all the best…

An evening with strike leaders

Posted on By 3arabawy

I attended yesterday a meeting of strike leaders from a number of industrial and service sectors and URETA activists, part of the ongoing efforts to push for independent labor unions and learn from the Tax Collectors‘ pioneering experience.

I thought of sharing some miscellaneous notes from the meeting:

– A worker speaking in a high-pitched voice: “In Port Said we had no strikes, no nothing (few years ago). But we learned from Mahalla. We read about what they did. Everybody did. They were in the newspapers. People talked a lot, and when one speaks about something, the talk spreads around fast….”
The worker went on explaining how Mahalla was a source of inspiration, and started giving examples of strikes and sit-ins in his company (which I won’t mention for now), but I was then intrigued to hear him addressing other strike leaders:
“I’m glad I met all of you today. We do need national coordination. But why don’t we also have a website? We can put information about all our problems on that website, including our statements. Then instead of distributing the statements in the factories, which is very dangerous, we can just distribute the website address among the workers and tell them to check it on the net. If the workers don’t have computers at home, then they can go to cyber-cafe to check it out.”

– A veteran labor organizer from Giza addressing the strike leaders: “You should not be afraid from the police. They make threats all the time to deter you from doing the right thing. You can be immune only if you have the backing of your fellow workers in the factory. If you have support in the factory or in your workplace they won’t be able to touch you. Look at the leaders of the Tax Collectors. Why didn’t they just “disappear” them? Why didn’t they “send them behind the sun” as they always threaten?”
“Mister, we are already behind the sun,” interrupted a Mahalla textile worker. “Don’t worry, we are not afraid. What have we to lose? Please move on to the next subject.”

– “All men of religion work for State Security police,” thundered a Coptic worker from the Steel Mills who had gone on a hunger strike and only suspended it after SS brought priests from his neighborhood to convince him what he was doing was “ungodly” promising to intervene on his behalf. “I suspended my strike. All promises they gave me turned out to be lies. The priests and State Security have lied to me and do not care about me. I am trying to get the support of my colleagues to solve my problems (with the management). I have no one to seek help from except my colleagues, whether they were Christians or Muslims.”

Doctors protest at finance ministry, but disagreements prevail

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

Doctors protested pay conditions outside the ministry of finance Tuesday, amidst clear divisions between the Doctors’ Syndicate, which organized the protest, and rights group Doctors Without Rights (DWR).
Some 40 doctors took part in the protest, holding up signs reading “the ministry of finance gives with its right hand and takes with its left” and, “what happened to [prime minister] Nazif’s promises about improvements in pay?”
“[The Syndicate and DWR] differ on a fundamental point: do we demand only the basic minimum wage and keep on calling for it even if the government doesn’t award it to us, or do we work on gradual improvement?” Doctors’ Syndicate secretary-general Essam El-Erian told Daily News Egypt.
“Through gradual improvement we will eventually be able to add pay improvements given to us to the [existing] basic wage, and will end up with a salary with is equivalent to the basic minimum wage DWR are calling for,” El-Erian continued.
A Syndicate statement handed out during the protest called on finance minister Youssef Botros Ghali to implement the pay pledges made as part of the prime ministerial decree 318 that introduced pay rises in the form of a doctors’ incentive payment.
While the first stage of this pay scheme was received by some doctors, Nazif last month announced that as a result of the global economic crisis, there are “insufficient funds” to implement the second stage of the pay scheme.
DWR meanwhile have long called for a fixed, basic minimum wage whose payment is not subject to the whims of hospital management, as is the case with incentive payments and allowances, DWR says.
El-Erian pointed to the problems in payment of the basic minimum wage in other sectors.
“Judges complain of two things; financial independence, and the fact that the minimum wage they receive is not enough. There is a new minimum wage for school teachers whose implementation has been extremely difficult — there are protests every day as a result. It’s the same problem everywhere. What counts now is the money going into doctors’ pockets today, and the pension they will receive in the future,” El-Erian explained.
DWR meanwhile were critical of the decision to protest outside the ministry of finance, saying in a statement that their participation was “symbolic”.
“The doctors’ allowance was issued without ensuring that sufficient funds exist to finance it — stripping it of all meaning, and making clear that its real objective was to deceive doctors,” DWR says in a statement.
“By protesting outside the ministry of finance we are sending the message that we don’t understand that we are being deliberately deceived … and that we believe the minister of health’s claims that his decisions are genuine and only stalled by the minister of finance”.