Tag: unions

U.R.E.T.A.

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Real Estate Tax Collectors‘ free union leaders are now meeting with labor lawyers and journalists, in downtown Cairo drafting the constitution of the union.

The official name of the union will be:
نقابة العاملين بالضرائب العقارية
Union of Real Estate Tax Authority employees (URETA)

The activists are discussing the official phrasing of the articles detailing the “objectives” and the “membership” of the union… The general assembly of the free union which elected the current leadership last December, delegated the latter the authority to draft the constitution. The union leadership has engaged since then in discussion with the base cadres and the representatives in the provinces, listening to suggestions.

Today, the leaders are convening in Cairo with labor lawyers and journalists to put together the charter. I’m at the meeting, connected to the internet via USB modem. I’ll post more later.

Statement from the Tax Collectors Free Union

Posted on By 3arabawy

The Tax Collectors‘ Free Union issued a statement denouncing the state-backed General Union of Insurance, Bank and Finance Workers, accusing the latter of trying to hijack the free union’s project to establish a retirement fund for the Real Estate Tax Collectors.

The latest move by general union head Farouk Shehata comes amid continuous stepped up rhetoric by the state-backed union bureaucrats. I was chatting with a labor organizer involved in the current unionization effort about this issue a couple of days ago. He summed up the attitude of the state union men by this: “First, they tried to crush to strikes. They failed. They decided to step aside and do nothing, watching helplessly, only to find the carpet being pulled from beneath their feet slowly. The tax collectors (free union) was a big hit to them. Now it’s become a fashion to speak about independent unions everywhere. They felt their existence is coming to an end. That’s why they started raising their voices and shout every now and then. You have general union heads, with great history of betrayals and treason, suddenly saying they support or even call for strikes. (President of the corrupt, state backed General Federation of Trade Unions Hussein) Megawer is getting into fights with (Finance Minister Youssef Botross) Ghali over demands. You can expect more of this in the future. But there are limits of course and red lines they will never cross, and you don’t know for how long they’d be able to maintain this very fragile balance between the workers and the govt they are serving. After all those ‘yellow trade unionists’ got their jobs thanks to State Security (police).”