The euphoria amongst the Egyptian masses that followed the fall of
Mubarak in February has disappeared. The hard reality of the situation –
in which political, social, and economic conditions have barely changed
– has set in. The revolution has not ended, however, but has, after a
brief lull, transitioned from the streets to the workplaces. The working
class in Egypt – the motor force of the revolution – is organising and
is on the move.
The euphoria amongst the Egyptian
masses that followed the fall of Mubarak in February has disappeared.
The hard reality of the situation – in which political, social, and
economic conditions have barely changed – has set in. The revolution has
not ended, however, but has, after a brief lull, transitioned from the
streets to the workplaces. The working class in Egypt – the motor force
of the revolution – is organising and is on the move.
As we have reported previously,
the conditions facing the masses in Egypt have hardly improved since
the departure of Mubarak over seven months ago. Since then, the
revolution has continued, but has been increasingly differentiated along
class lines. At the forefront of the struggles are the working class
and the youth, those layers of society that have the most to gain from
the victory of the revolution – and also the most to lose from its
defeat. After a brief lull during the period of Ramadan, the masses are
reasserting themselves once again, but now on a higher level, as the
epicentre of the revolution moves from protests in Tahrir Square to
strikes in key industries. In the process, the Egyptian labour movement
is gaining confidence and is growing both in size and strength.
Public sector strikes
Photo: Carlos LatuffThe events surrounding the “Correct the Path” demonstration on the 9th September (http://www.marxist.com/egypts-correct-the-path-friday.htm)
marked the beginning of an intense period of workers’ struggles. The
most prominent of these have been amongst hundreds of thousands of
public sector workers in three sectors: teachers, transport workers, and
health staff. The demands of the workers in these sectors are similar:
for a minimum wage of LE1200 ($200), improved working conditions, and
increased spending on services and infrastructure.
Egypt’s public sector teachers, who have been on strike since the beginning of the new academic term on the 17th
September, are currently paid as little as LE700 (id="mce_marker"17)
per month, with many having to take second jobs, such as private
tutoring, to get by. The strike, which is the first amongst teachers
since 1951 (when Egypt was still under British rule), escalated over the
course of its first week, helped in part by the government’s attempts
to pour cold water over it. Attempts by officials from the Ministry of
Education to sow demoralisation by claiming that there was little
support for the strike action amongst teachers ended up provoking the
opposite response, with independent reports indicating participation of
between 75-85% in the strike of Egypt’s 1.3-1.5 million public sector
teachers.
Calls for a minimum wage of LE1200 are only one of many
demands being made by teachers. Other demands include the release of a
200% productivity bonus that was promised to all public sector workers
earlier this year, healthcare provision, and full benefits for those
currently on temporary contracts.
The Independent Teachers’ Union,
which is playing a leading role in organising and co-ordinating the
strike action, has also made it clear that the strikes are not solely
for the economic gains of the teachers, but also for the improvement of
education for students. In an interview with Ahram Online, Abdelhakim Abdelbar, a high school maths teacher, stated that,
“The
government does not provide enough desks and chairs for the students
and they don’t provide enough pay for the teachers… How can I teach
the students when they can’t find a place to sit?”
Students are sympathetic to the cause of their teachers. In the same article, Walaa Ahmed, a high school student said,
“I
do understand that my teachers are in a tough position and that they
are paid very low wages for the amount of time and energy they spend on
us… I still come to school hoping they will start teaching soon. I
don’t blame them for anything though; that’s what we had a revolution
for.”
Workers in the Public Transport Authority (PTA) have been
taking strike action in the same week. The PTA strike began on Sunday 18th
September in one bus garage in Cairo. By mid-week the strike had spread
to 20 of the 24 garages in the Egyptian capital, and by the end of the
week there was not a single bus running in Cairo.
The demands of
the transport workers – which include drivers, conductors, and mechanics
– are for a LE1200 per month minimum wage, a lower retirement age, and
investment in new buses and improved services. The 45,000 PTA workers in
Egypt are currently on salaries as low as LE250-400; 10-hour shifts are
not uncommon; and safety on buses is a big concern for drivers.
Over 2000 transport workers took their protests to the government cabinet headquarters on Thursday 22nd
September where they were joined by tok-tok (small moped taxis) drivers
and doctors, thousands of whom have been on strike for over two weeks
demanding a wage, the LE1200 minimum wage. Doctors, nurses, and other
medical staff in Egypt have consistently been on strike since May 2011,
not only demanding improved wages, but also increased spending on
healthcare services. Currently only 3-4% of GDP of public spending goes
towards healthcare, but medical staff are calling for this to be
increased to 15%.
Private sector
strike action has not been confined to these three sets of workers.
Elsewhere in the public sector, postal workers, civil aviation staff,
and university professors have also been on strike. Meanwhile, strikes
are increasingly taking place within the private sector, with the
textile workers in Mahalla, who have taken action consistently over the
last six years or more, once again at the forefront.
Amongst these
strikes of textile workers were 1000 from the Wool Production Company
and 3000 from the Nasr Company for Fabric Dyeing, both of whom were
demanding payment of overdue bonuses and increased incentive payments.
Also of note were 700 textile workers at the Indorama Shebin al-Kom
Textile Company, which was privatized in 2007, who blocked highways and
occupied the governorate headquarters in order to demand the
re-nationalisation of the company, along with improved working
conditions and wages.
Elsewhere, over 20,000 workers at the Misr
Company for Spinning and Weaving, the largest textile mill in the Middle
East, called off an open-ended strike that had been planned after their
demands for increased bonuses and food allowances were met.
Mohamed al-Attar, a veteran labourr activist at the Misr Company, summed up the mood amongst workers in an interview with the Egyptian news website Al Masyr Al Youm:
"All
of Egypt’s workers from Aswan to Alexandria are exploited and
under-paid. The interim government and SCAF [Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces] should set a just and adequate minimum wage, for workers
in all sectors of the economy, which is in keeping with rising living
expenses.”
"Workers are tired of empty promises. Workers gave the
authorities seven months to address these common grievances and have
seen little to nothing in terms of actual reforms. We are reaching
boiling point.”
Strikes have also been seen elsewhere in
manufacturing, including 1,200 workers in Ideal Zanussi (a kitchen
appliance maker) factories, who have been protesting over money they are
owed as part of the LE2.7 billion sale of the company to Swedish firm
Electrolux, and thousands of workers in sugar refineries in Luxor, who
have been striking in order to purge the company’s management of
officials from the old Mubarak regime. On Friday 23rd
September, the Ain Sokhna port at the southern entrance to the Suez
Canal was shut due to strike action, costing the Dubai company that owns
the high-tech port id="mce_marker" million per day. After four days,
the port workers won all their demands.
Co-ordination
One
of the most impressive characteristics of the recent strike action is
the co-ordination between different sectors. One notable example is that
of the strikes at the American University in Cairo (AUC), where
students, cleaning staff, university drivers, and 170 security staff
took joint strike action for a week before winning their demand. Workers
at the AUC were striking primarily over wages, demanding LE2000 per
month, along with improved working conditions and shorter hours, whilst
students were calling for a cap on tuition fees, which are rising well
above inflation.
Initially the AUC President refused to negotiate
with either the student or worker representatives, but this provocative
stance only led to an increase in the size and militancy of the
student-worker strike. After a week, however, the AUC issued the
following statement:
"The American University in Cairo reached an
agreement today with the Independent Syndicate representing AUC
custodians, landscape workers, and security guards, and with the Student
Union representing students. The agreement provides better salaries and
employment conditions for workers, more transparency on processes and
procedures affecting the AUC community, and more opportunities to engage
students in the University’s annual budget process."
In addition,
the AUC management promised to "provide the AUC community, including
students, with a detailed version of the University budget."
Another example of co-ordination was seen at the protest outside the cabinet headquarters on Thursday 22nd
September, where striking doctors and PTA staff were joined by workers
from Unionaire, a manufacturer of air-conditioning units, who were
taking action due to the dismissal and transference of jobs. In
addition, workers were demanding profit shares that they are owed due to
the Unionaire’s status as an Egyptian joint stock company.
Of
course these struggles are rarely (if ever) mentioned in the bourgeois
media. For these liberal commentators, the Egyptian revolution – and the
“Arab Spring” in general – were only ever movements for bourgeois
democracy. The continued struggles by workers and youth in Egypt, along
with the mass movement in “democratic” Israel are therefore of great
confusion to these so-called “experts”, who prefer instead to ignore
reality when it does not conform to their nice theories about society.
Independent trade unions
One
of the most important developments since the beginning of the
revolution, which is now beginning to bear fruit, is the growth of the
independent trade unions. These newly formed unions have played a
pivotal role in the organisation and co-ordination of the different
struggles and strikes, and have almost entirely been formed since the 25th January movement started.
The
creation of the independent unions through the course of the struggle
is the perfect answer to those cynics on the left who claim that workers
cannot – and must not! – enter into struggle before they first reach a
certain (un-measureable and unmentioned) level of organisation. The
reality is that the working class enters into struggle due to the
necessity imposed by objective conditions, not due to the baton waving
of these “revolutionary conductors” who sit on the fringe of the
movement and imagine that they can set the tempo of the masses, bringing
workers into struggle at their whim like sections of an orchestra. As
Rosa Luxemburg points out in her pamphlet on “The Mass Strike”:
“The
attitude of many trade-union leaders to this question is generally
summed up in the assertion: ‘We are not yet strong enough to risk such a
hazardous trial of strength as a mass strike.’ Now this position is so
far untenable that it is an insoluble problem to determine the time, in a
peaceful fashion by counting heads, when the proletariat are ‘strong
enough’ for any struggle…
“…The rigid, mechanical-bureaucratic
conception cannot conceive of the struggle save as the product of
organisation at a certain stage of its strength. On the contrary, the
living, dialectical explanation makes the organisation arise as a
product of the struggle.”
These new unions are called
“independent” to contrast them against the old state trade unions, the
General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), which were originally set up
by Nasser in 1957. For decades, these unions acted not as tools of
struggle for the working class, but as instruments to control the
working class and channel their struggles down safe manageable roads,
much like the modern day trade unions set up by the Communist Party in
China. As Haitham Mohjamedein, a labour lawyer and advisor to several
independent trade unions, explains in an article entitled “The road to trade union independence” on Ahram Online:
“Since
its creation in 1957, the government controlled GFTU has opposed
demands by workers and their movements, condemning strikes and sit-ins
and informed on labour leaders. The main role of the trade union was to
ensure the subservience of labour to government, and later on, private
business as well…
“…GFTU approved the privatisation of
state-owned enterprises which laid off hundreds of thousands of workers
because of blatantly corrupt deals and wasted public funds. It also
actively participated in the suppression of labour protests against the
privatisation process.”
Nevertheless, for decades these unions
were the only mass organisations available to workers, and therefore
revolutionaries were forced to work inside them, as the Bolsheviks did
with the police trade unions in Tsarist Russia.
Only four
independent trade unions existed before the fall of Mubarak in February.
The first of these, formed by the Mahalla textile workers, was created
in 2006 during a series of strikes by workers at the textile factories.
Other independent unions included the tax collectors’ union and the
journalists’ syndicate.
These independent unions played an important role in the 25th January movement, and in the wake of Mubarak’s departure on 11th
February 2011, over half a million Egyptians, including workers,
farmers, and pensioners began forming their own syndicates and trade
unions. Many of these new unions were in key sectors, such as transport
and healthcare, and are now linked together in an “Independent Trade
Union Federation”, with an estimated 150 separate unions and syndicates.
In the months following the 11th
February the balance of power shifted from the old GFTU, which had
played the role of suppressing the protests and strikes in the first
weeks of the revolution, to the new independent trade unions. Whilst
building their new unions, workers agitated and struggled for the
break-up of the old GFTU, until, on 4th August 2011, the Minister of Labour, Ahmed Al-Boraie, declared the GFTU to be dissolved.
Since
then, the Independent Trade Union Federation has gone from strength to
strength, and has played an extremely important role in co-ordinating
workers’ struggles and strike actions, both across regions and across
sectors. In addition, the Independent Federation has played an active
part in the movement, mobilising its members for protests and putting
forward a militant programme of economic and political demands.
Political demands
Thousands
of PTA workers and healthcare staff, including 3000 medical technicians
who are on strike, returned to protest outside the cabinet on Sunday 25th September, following on from a protest by teachers at the cabinet on Saturday 24th
September that continued the revolution’s calls for “social justice”
and “human dignity”. The teachers’ protest was estimated to be over
10,000, with workers attending from all over Egypt and parents joining
in support. Cabinet ministers responded by calling an emergency meeting
to discuss the demands of the three sets of striking workers.
The workers participating in these protests raised political demands, linked to their economic demands. For example, Al Masry Al Youm reports that,
“Abdullah Mahmoud Ibrahim [the treasurer of the Independent PTA Union]
said that since the revolution it became evident the state had a lot of
money, but that officials in the regime were stealing it.”
Corruption
within the higher levels of the public sector is still rife. State
bureaucrats treat the public sector as their very own honey pot that
they can dip into at any time – always at the expense of the workers.
Transport workers within the PTA cited corruption as one of the causes
for their strike. In particular, they mentioned how the social insurance
that is deducted from their pay checks ultimately ends up in the hands
of state officials, and is often used to line pockets of strike-breaking
policemen.
Teachers and doctors at these protests were calling
for the heads of the ministers of education and healthcare,
respectively, to resign, whilst employees from the transport workers
were demanding the removal of any officials in the PTA who were members
of the NDP (the now defunct party of Mubarak). These demands have been
raised throughout the public sector, where workers see the same old
bureaucrats in positions of power, reflecting the presence of the old
regime at the top of the state in the shape of the Supreme Council of
the Armed Forces (SCAF).
The current strikes and protests are also
politicised by the fact that they openly break the law and defy the
Military Council’s rule. Strikes were nominally made illegal by the SCAF
back in April following the initial phase of the revolution for “the
national interest”, whilst protests were formally banned with the
re-introduction of emergency laws in the wake of the protests at the
Israeli embassy on the 9th September. In addition, the SCAF
has stated that it will not negotiate with any groups of public sector
workers whilst strikes are taking place; however, the workers are
putting this statement to the test through their determination.
These
examples demonstrate what the Marxists have explained on many
occasions: that the struggle for economic gains is at the same time a
political struggle; in the epoch of capitalist decay, the fight for
economic demands and political rights are two intertwined and
inseparable threads. The fight for even the most basic economic reform
will lead the workers into a head on collision with the existing state
apparatus. In turn, democratic rights, such as the right to organise and
strike, will not – and cannot – be simply granted from above by the
bourgeois state, but must be wrestled from the grasp of the ruling class
through the process of struggle. The right for workers to organise and
strike is not won through parliament, but is, paradoxically, won through
the working class organising and striking.
No way out for the Military Council
brazen and open defiance of the SCAF and its strike ban marks an
important turning point in the revolution. It demonstrates that the
working class, who played the leading role in toppling Mubarak, have
lost their fear once again. The working class, once it is organised and
fearless, is an unstoppable force.
The revolution has opened the
floodgates of expectation for the Egyptian workers and youth. The more
serious bourgeois commentators understand the severity of the situation
now facing the regime in Egypt as a result. The Washington Post describes the
recent wave of strikes as “a revolution within the revolution”, going
on to say that “the change has left Egypt’s ruling military council
appearing caught like a deer in the headlights.”
This is an
accurate portrayal of the situation that the military rulers find
themselves in. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, seemingly
with no way out. Some members of the regime will argue that the reforms
cannot be afforded and that to grant any concessions would open the way
for further demands. They will demand that the protests are suppressed.
Others within the SCAF will argue that open repression will simply
aggravate and inflame the situation even further, and that reforms from
above are needed in order to avert revolution from below. Both sides are
correct.
The Washington Post elaborates on this contradictory dilemma that confronts the military rulers:
“The
military council is being forced to calculate whether a crackdown on
the strikes would simply ignite more unrest, while lending truth to
charges that little has changed since Mubarak fell in February…
“…
‘The genie is now out the bottle,’ said Magda Kandil, executive
director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies. ‘Now that fear is
gone, the workers are demanding more. It’s become a culture of
opportunism where they believe that strikes will result in an economic
benefit, and the strikes are becoming more widespread, more difficult to
contain. This is not what the economy needs right now.’…
“…
‘On the one hand, there is economic panic and their gut instinct is to
use repressive means,’ said Heba Morayef, Egypt representative for Human
Rights Watch. ‘But there is also a political recognition that they
can’t afford to completely crack down on these strikes.’”
Precarious economy
Indeed,
the Egyptian economy is in a precarious state. The budget deficit is as
high as that of Greece. An article on Al Masra Al Youm (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/498033) highlights the weakness of the economy:
“Egypt’s
economy, which sailed relatively unscathed through the global financial
crisis of 2008-2009, was heading back towards annual growth of 6%
before the uprising erupted, analysts say.
“Now it has been
knocked back hard. The economy grew by 1.8% in the year to30 June. The
government has said it may expand by 3-3.5% in the 2011/12 fiscal year,
nowhere near the 6% which economists say is needed to create enough jobs
to lower unemployment.”
The problem facing the economy is that
both investors and tourists have been frightened away by the
revolutionary events. In particular, investors are worried and uncertain
about what the future holds in store. They want reassurance from the
military rulers that businesses will not be made to pay for the demands
of the masses, as the Al Masra Al Youm article points out:
“Egyptian
firms, many facing strikes and other pressures to raise pay, in
particular want assurances that economic policy will not become more
populist. They fear the government could hike taxes on firms and
introduce legislation or administrative steps to push up wages as it
tries to placate protesters angry at the deep divide between rich and
poor.
“ ‘The question is how do you pay for social justice without
harming business to the extent that in a free market economy,
investment stops and job creation stops?’ said Taher Gargour, deputy CEO
of ceramics firm Lecico , who negotiated worker pay rises this year
that ended a series of strikes.
“The longer uncertainty over this
issue persists, the longer companies will hold off on investment,
sapping the economic growth that is needed to improve mass living
standards.”
Indeed, the Military Council have tried to reassure
investors that Egypt is “business friendly”. The anti-strike laws can be
seen as one such assurance. However, such laws are only ink on paper,
backed up by armed bodies of men. In the final analysis, it is the
struggle between the classes that will determine whether such laws can
be applied in practice.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Essam Sharaf has
repeatedly told striking workers that there is no money for their
demands of improved wages and increased spending on public services.
Workers, however, are acutely aware that there is plenty of wealth in
the Egyptian economy; unfortunately the vast majority of it ends up in
the pockets of the regime and multinational company executives, not in
the hands of the masses. As one striking maths teacher put it: “They’re
saying the country and the ministry have no money, but we all know how
much money they have and what they do with it.”
Demands by
striking workers fully recognise where the wealth of the nation is
going, with calls to root out the corrupt members of the old regime who
are still sitting in positions of power within the state and the public
sector. In addition, the demands for a national maximum wage and
re-nationalisation of privatised industries have been frequently made by
those on strike, indicating that control of the economy and
redistribution of wealth are key issues for workers.
The real
problem with the Egyptian economy, however, is not simply a lack of
investment or a disparity of incomes; these are merely symptoms of the
fundamental contradiction within the Egyptian economy and the world
economy as a whole: the private ownership of the commanding heights of
the economy. The nationalisation of these commanding heights – the
banks, key industries, and infrastructure – under democratic workers’
control is the precondition for investing in education, healthcare, and
transport, and for eliminating the inequality within Egyptian society.
Swim or sink
The
revolution is like a swimming shark: it must keep on moving forward or
it will sink. The workers are currently on the offensive; they have the
regime on the back foot. The recent wave of strikes has filled the
workers with confidence and has given the labour movement a sense of its
own power. This burgeoning labour movement must not lose its momentum;
to do so will lead to demoralisation and confusion amongst the masses,
and would give the military rulers the opportunity to re-organise and
move in to crush the workers.
There are already indications of
this process taking place. The Independent Teachers’ Union called off
the teachers’ strike on Sunday 25th September for a week
after the cabinet agreed to look into their demands. This deflation of
the strike has caused splits amongst the teachers, with some staying out
on strike in defiance of the union leadership. Such decisions to call
off strike action – that is otherwise escalating – could prove costly.
Many
in the Egyptian labour movement are now talking openly about the
possibility of a general strike, organised and co-ordinated by the
nascent independent trade union federation. In an interview with Ahram Online, a labour movement journalist gave the reasoning behind the prediction of a general strike in the coming period:
“Mostafa
Bassouni spoke on the scope of the strikes, stating that since the end
of Ramadan, more than half a million workers have gone on strike. He
also believed that this was the beginning of a general strike to come.
“‘The
first sign of the coming general strike is the size of the current
wave. The second sign is that workers have been planning these strikes
ahead of time – at times weeks in advance. We are no longer just seeing
knee jerk strikes,’ the labour journalist stated.”
A general
strike would be an enormous step forward for the revolution and, in a
situation fraught with such heightened contradictions as are seen in
Egypt, where not an inch of reform can be granted to the masses without
them taking a mile more, a general strike would pose the question of
power point blank.
The formation of the independent trade unions
and their pivotal role in the recent wave of strikes has been an
incredibly positive development in the revolution. The task now is for
these strikes and independent unions to broaden out; to increase in size
and scale; to bring in new layers of workers; to expand to different
areas and sectors; and to co-ordinate and concentrate this force to
break capitalism at its weakest link and overthrow the regime
once-and-for-all. A mass strike of such a scale would, in turn, provide
an incredible impetus to the revolution in Tunisia, to the revolutionary
youth in Libya, and to the mass movement for “social justice” in
Israel.
The workers and youth in the Middle East and the Maghreb
do not need to place their futures in the hands of nationalists,
religious fundamentalists, or agents of imperialism. The revolutionary
masses in Egypt and elsewhere should place their trust in nobody but
themselves, for they alone have the power to bring about the solution to
the problems they face: a socialist Egypt as part of a united socialist
states of the Middle East and North Africa
