Tag: workers

Metro maintenance workers on strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received the following message from a Socialist activist:

The metro maintenance workers (Shobra-Giza Line) have escalated their industrial action from a sit-in to a strike, today Sunday 3 Feb. The workers lied down on the rails, banning trains from getting in or out the maintenance area. The workers threatened to march on the rails, all the way to the Shobra el-Kheima Station, if the management doesn’t respond to their demands. Around 500 workers are taking part in the action. They had started a sit-in yesterday at the maintenance workshops, at the Faculty of Agriculture Metro Station, calling for increases their bonuses and allowances related to housing, food, and risky work.

UPDATE: Photos from journalist Mostafa Bassiouny:

  • ​ا​ضراب عمال صيانة مترو الأنفاق ٣ فبراير ٢٠٠٨، المصدر: الصحفي مصطفى بسيوني
  • ​ا​ضراب عمال صيانة مترو الأنفاق ٣ فبراير ٢٠٠٨، المصدر: الصحفي مصطفى بسيوني
  • ​ا​ضراب عمال صيانة مترو الأنفاق ٣ فبراير ٢٠٠٨، المصدر: الصحفي مصطفى بسيوني
  • ​ا​ضراب عمال صيانة مترو الأنفاق ٣ فبراير ٢٠٠٨، المصدر: الصحفي مصطفى بسيوني
  • ​ا​ضراب عمال صيانة مترو الأنفاق ٣ فبراير ٢٠٠٨، المصدر: الصحفي مصطفى بسيوني

2007 Industrial action stats sharply conflict

Posted on By 3arabawy

In a new report, The Land Center for Human Rights estimates there were 323 industrial actions in 2007: 179 sit-ins, 74 strikes, 49 demonstrations, 2 illegal assemblies, 19 silent stands in protest.. The same center had put the number of labor industrial actions in 2006 at 222.

The estimate conflicts sharply with others issued by labor activists. The second issue of Egyptian Workers and Social Resistance put the number of industrial actions from January to July 2007 alone at 368: 100 Sit-ins, 109 Strikes, 33 Demonstrations, 126 illegal assemblies accompanied by a short-period work stoppages. [Please note when you are reading the original copy of the report posted online that there is a typo: “368” is written “386”, but when you do the math the number of industrial actions add up only to 368.]

While a booklet by the Center for Socialist Studies, coauthored by Mostafa Bassiouny and Omar Said, says (page 13) there were more than 650 industrial actions from 7 December 2006 to 23 September 2007 (i.e., between the two Mahalla strikes).