Tag: unions

VICTORY ! النصر

Posted on 21/04/2009 By 3arabawy

I’ve just come back home after spending the day with hundreds of Tax Collectors, who descended on Nasr City, to lobby the Labor Ministry into recognizing the Free Union… It was a show of strength, power of the union.. Habibi, the president of Free Union Kamal Abu Eita was shouting in the mic today in front of the ministry before they forced the officials into allowing them in, saying: “Last century we fought the British colonialists to gain our country’s independence… Today we fight the Egyptian regime to gain the independence of our unions… That (second) battle is no less important.” And he’s right…

It was a FANTASTIC day.. probably one of the happiest days I had so far this year… I gotta run out again now and do some family errands, but I’ll write a report later and upload tons of pix I took…

MABROUK MABROUK MABROUK….

Doctors Syndicate calls on private clinics to strike today

Posted on 09/04/200910/02/2021 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 03/04/200908/01/2021 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.”