Tag: workers

Omar Effendi workers continue sit-in for third day

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

Employees of the Omar Effendi department store continued their sit-in for the third day on Thursday outside the department store’s Downtown Cairo headquarters in protest at alleged wage discrimination between them and recently-employed staff.
Muhammad El-Seessy, an auditor with the company, asked, “How is it justifiable that I earn LE 350 when I have two bachelors degrees and a diploma, and someone with one bachelor’s degree earns LE 1,500? If you tested us you’d find that I’m better than him.”
El-Seessy alleges that Omar Effendi’s owning company, Saudi Arabia’s Anwal — which bought the previously state-owned company in 2007 — plans to sell off the company’s buildings, often located on prime real estate locations.
El-Seessy says that by making conditions intolerable for workers who have been employed for many years and forcing them to leave, the sell-off process will be made easier.
The three workers Daily News Egypt spoke to, had been with the company for between 10 and 20 years, but earn no more than LE 400 per month.
“We want equality between us and the new employees. There is a huge difference between us and them. Ask any of them how much they make and they’ll tell you LE 1,600. They’re doing this to make us fed up; so we’ll leave,” Abdel Rahim Abdel Rahim said.
“We also no longer have buses to take us to and from work so we now rely on public transport. We’re fined half a day’s pay for every minute we are late. When we asked for an extra LE 150 to cover public transport expenses they refused.”
Abdel Rahim alleges that when workers demanded higher pay and their profit share, they were told to submit resignations and sign new contracts in order to make it easier for the company to subsequently end their employment.
Workers criticize the company’s trade union, which they say is “in league” with company management.
Daily News Egypt attempted to contact Omar Effendi’s CFO Sherif Sobhy for comment but he did not answer his telephone up to press time.
Originally established in 1856, Omar Effendi is Egypt’s largest retail chain with 82 outlets nationwide. In February 2007, Anwal purchased a 90 percent stake in the company for a reported $102.5 million plus the assumption of all outstanding debts. The Egyptian government maintains the remaining 10 percent of the company.
The sale was condemned by its opponents who believed that the chain was worth at least double the amount it was sold for.

Notes on the 6th of April, MBs…

Posted on By 3arabawy

I asked the labor leaders present in the meeting yesterday whether anything was planned in their workplaces on the 6th of April. The answer was no… In other words, no strikes planned in Ghazl el-Mahalla, nothing in the Steel Mills, no plans for the Railways, and I can go on…

Some of the labor leaders will take part in the noon protest planned on that day in front the state-backed General Federation of Trade Unions building, and some of them will bring “symbolic” delegations from their factories.

Meaning, there is no general strike…

Re: The Muslim Brotherhood’s “endorsement” of the strike:
The group’s brief statement was even vaguer and weaker than the ones they issued last year on the 6th of April and 4th of May. At least three MB sources I spoke with confirmed the group is NOT taking to the streets–something that comes as no surprise for any observer of the group’s continuous retreat vis a vis the regime since the start of the 2006 crackdown.

Yet, the group’s leadership is coming under strong pressure from their youth “to do something.” Last week a young MB media activist visited me in my home coz he wanted some help with some Web2.0 stuff. Our meeting was interrupted by a phone call he received from a journalist who wanted to interview him. While I couldn’t hear what the questions were, I sat there for at least 15 minutes listening to the young MB hammering on the phone the group’s Guidance Bureau with severe criticism, demanding they state clearly a position vis a vis Mubarak, to mobilize “more strongly” against the regime, to campaign more militantly about this or that, to engage the current strike wave and, and, and, and… This criticism is not limited to my young friend, and the divisions are public and have been the subject of sensationalist coverage by the local press and blogs.

In all cases, and contrary to what some might think, I believe the group has never been in that shaky position with its internal rifts and security crackdowns since the mid 1990s, if not the mid 1960s. And the cliche about the MBs being an iron-fist, highly disciplined organization with its Supreme Guide assuming a quasi-holy status is very much untrue..

Faced with the 6th of April “strike call”, the MB leadership has decided to play it safe again. They issued a vague “endorsement” statement to appease their base cadres, will allow their students to demonstrate on the campuses, while refraining from any agitation in the streets or the workplaces…

I forgot to mention also that Adel el-Badri’s Free Union of Egypt’s Workers has endorsed the “general strike”… The Union will be mobilizing that day with its full force, i.e.: Adel el-Badri and his fax machine.

So to sum up… Let’s not get driven by virtual reality again, and remain on the ground… The 6th of April will NOT be a general strike… It will be a day of protests, a day of rage.. There will be protests in Cairo, Helwan and other universities, downtown Cairo and events organized by the political parties in the provinces… Let’s try to make it a successful day…

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.”