Joel Beinin
Articles by Joel Beinin, American professor of Middle Eastern studies and regular contributer to Middle East Report currently living in Cairo, Egypt.
The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra - Joel Beinin
"For the second time in less than a year, in the final week of September the 24,000 workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla al-Kubra went on strike -- and won." This article by Joel Beinin gives a good overview of the Mahalla al-Kubra's Ramadan strike of September 2007.
For the second time in less than a year, in the final week of September the 24,000 workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla al-Kubra went on strike -- and won. As they did the first time, in December 2006, the workers occupied the Nile Delta town’s mammoth textile mill and rebuffed the initial mediation efforts of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Strikes in Egypt spread from centre of gravity
The longest and strongest wave of worker protest since the end of World War II is rolling through Egypt. In March, the liberal daily al-Masri al-Yawm estimated that no fewer than 222 sit-in strikes, work stoppages, hunger strikes and demonstrations had occurred during 2006.
Take from Middle East Report Online
In the first five months of 2007, the paper has reported a new labour action nearly every day. The citizen group Egyptian Workers and Trade Union Watch documented 56 incidents during the month of April, and another 15 during the first week of May alone.[1]
Egyptian textile workers confront the new economic order
An analysis of the recent strike-wave in Egypt which involved tens of thousands of textile workers and a look at the history of labour militancy in the country.
For the last ten years Muhammad ‘Attar, 36, has worked in the finishing department at the gigantic Misr Spinning and Weaving Company complex at Mahalla al-Kubra in the middle of the Nile Delta. He takes home a basic wage of about $30. With profit sharing and incentives, his net pay is about $75 a month.
