Ghazl el-Mahallah are striking
Sep 23 2007 09:23
The textile workers at Ghazl el-Mahalla are striking again. Early this morning about 10.000 workers went on strike with the numbers swelling to 20.000 in a few hours (the total workforce is 27.000).
Their demands are,
Quote:
1- Impeaching the company board chairman2-Impeaching the Factory Union Committee officials
3-Linking the monthly incentives to a fixed percentage of the monthly basic salary
4-Increasing the food allowance to match in the increase in prices
5-Raising the salaries to match the increase in prices
6-Paying the workers 130-day as part of their annual share of profits
7-Solving the transportation crisis
8-Paying the workers housing allowances
They are very similar to the demands of December and the aborted strike of May.
For those of you who read Arabic, the best source is Egyworkers, a blog run by a Mahalla labour activist. It's also got lots of photos and videos of the strike so it's worth a visit. For English news Arabawy as usual.
Unfortunately I am forced to be at work so I can't go and check it out in person, but hopefully I'll be able to chase up more about this from some of the journos I know and will then post a proper story to the news section.
Sep 23 2007 10:19
#2
The relations between workers and the official union are antagonistic. The General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions have always been the arm of the state that recuperates working class struggles. In fact, the unions (like elsewhere), through the factory committees, are typically on the bosses side directly working against anything the rank and file wants (though there are exceptions of course).
One of the main issues (apart from wages and bonuses) of the strikes since December is about the corrupt unions. The textile workers in Mahallah and in Kafr el-Dawwar (place of another huge protest) want to form their own union, and currently this issue is what has transformed the strikes into being working class conscious rather than just about economic goals.
If you want to read up on this do a search on libcom for Egypt and you'll come across quite a lot of info (too much for me to bother to link to, sorry).
Sep 23 2007 10:57
#3
Sep 26 2007 16:55
#4
Admins - would it be useful to move threads on Egypt into the Africa forum?
Sep 26 2007 17:50
#5
We usually leave general interest news threads in 'news' so they get more attention
Sounds interesting. What are relations like between the textile workers and the unions?