I received a statement from the Workers’ Coordinating Committee saying 1000 bus drivers, ticket collectors, maintenance workers in El-Mahalla El-Kobra’s Bus Service have gone on strike since the morning. The workers are demanding their late bonus payments from their management. In addition, rumors are sweeping the company that the government will allow Ghabbour’s (private) Company to run bus lines on the same routes taken by the government’s bus service, in a move signals the govt’s intent on liquidating its bus service on these Mahalla routes, and sack its labor force.
The giant is awakening slowly…
A victory achieved by strikers in one factory, could encourage fellow workers to launch their own fight in the neighboring factory. Unfortunately, I did not have time up till now to write something substantial on the escalating militancy among the Egyptian working class. I hope I’ll put together something by next month. In the meantime, keep your eyes on the Nile Delta industrial towns–the historical hotbed of proletarian politics, and on the transportation sector: railways and trams.
So you get Tora and Cement workers going on strike after the victory achieved by the Textile workers in Mahalla. Underground Metro drivers slowed down their trams from 90km/h to 30 km/h in solidarity with the train drivers who blocked the trains with their bodies the day before yesterday, sending chills to the bones of every official at the Ministry of Transportation.
The struggle in one sector spills over to other sectors. It’s the domino effect, which became almost a natural law of activism. Victories open the appetite of everybody, and defeats demoralize the whole class.
But we are witnessing now a slow upturn in industrial militancy. Egypt’s movement for change, and in specific the revolutionary left, MUST DO ITS BEST to link its struggle against Mubarak’s autocratic regime to that in the floorshops in those factories. A general strike in this country should rid us from the regime and its gestapo once and for all. Hit them where it hurts… their pockets!
The Winter of Labor Discontent comes also as a slap on the face of those among Egypt’s new left, who have turned their backs on the working class, with their elitist neoliberal-disguised-as-leftist politics that supports privatization and claims independent working class activities are impossible, because the workers are “immature” and “not ready to play an independent role.” Well, guess what? 27,000 workers went on strike in Mahalla in December., and those “immature, dirty, illiterate” brown-faced workers occupied their factory, formed committees to manage their strike, formed security teams to patrol their factory making sure no sabotage happened, took their decisions democratically in mass meetings… and last but not least, their “economic” strike over bread and butter issues, quickly turned “political” strike in the end with thousands of workers chanting “Kefaya Mubarak! Kefaya Gamal!” and that’s when the regime, pissing in its pants, rushed to meet the workers’ demands.
Again, and again, and again, I’d like to repeat that the movement for change in Egypt is DOOMED to failure, unless we link ourselves to Mahalla, Helwan and their industrial sister towns.
More later…
اللجنة التنسيقية للحقوق والحريات النقابية والعمالية
إضراب عمال مرفق أتوبيس المحلة
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منذ صباح اليوم دخل عمال مرفق أتوبيس المحلة الكبرى في إضراب شامل عن العمل ضم السائقين والكمسارية وعمال الورش والجراجات والبالغ عددهم ألف عامل، وذكر المضربون لمبعوث اللجنة التنسيقية بالمحلة أن الإضراب جاء احتجاجا على امتناع الإدارة والمحافظة عن صرف الحافز والاضافى من ناحية ، وعلى محاولات خصخصة المرفق من ناحية ثانية حيث نما إلى علم العمال وجود اتفاق بين المحافظة وإحدى شركات غبور على تسيير أتوبيسات لشركة غبور على نفس خطوط أتوبيسات المرفق ليحدث إحلال تدريجي في الخطوط، وقد تأكد ذلك للعمال من قيام شركة الأهرام بتسيير أتوبيسات على خط ميت غمر المحلة تمهيدا لتسيير أتوبيسات جديدة على خطوط جديدة.
الاثنين 22/1/2007