Tanta Workers Continue Sit-In, Threaten Hunger Strike

Tadamon reports: 9 workers at Tanta Flax & Oils, who were fired after a strike last year, moved their sit-in from the headquarters of the General Union of Textile Workers to the factory grounds in Tanta, where around 1000 workers has been on strike since May. Earlier this week, an agreement was reached between the union and the company management, giving the workers a raise in meal allowances and retroactive payment of a yearly raise since 2007 on condition that they resume work on November 10. 

Workers fired during the strike has been offered early retirement with financial compensation of around 35,000 egyptian pounds. According to Tadamon, many workers are still refusing the terms of the agreement - the main reason being that it does not include re-hiring the 9 workers who were fired last year, despite previous court verdicts ordering the company to re-hire them.

The union initially supported the strike, but a majority of the workers refused to accept a previous agreement between the union and the management, and instead voted to continue their strike even as they were denied access to strike funds. The 9 workers are now threatening to start a hunger strike until their demands are met.

Update: As pointed out in the comments below, 50 workers who were fired during the strike had initially been promised 45,000 pounds each as compensation, but was suddenly told they would only get 35,000. Today, the two groups of workers (those fired during the previous strike and those during the last one) decided to join forces and occupied the factory, forcing security men and members of the management out while doing so, according to the center for socialist studies.   

"Historic verdict" in favour of Tanta labour leaders

The Center for Socialist Studies reports that an appeals court in Tanta ruled yesterday that 7 labour leaders that were fired after a strike in 2007 must be returned to their work. Lawyers describe the verdict - which is final - as a big victory for the workers and the labour movement since it establishes that employers must take their case to an adjudication tribunal or labour court before firing any worker. There is no compulsory mechanism to force the owner to implement the verdict, but the workers believe it will strengthen their negotiating position. Previously, the Saudi investor that bought Tanta Flax and Oils Company from the state in 2005 has promised to return the workers to their jobs if the court ruled in their favor.  Around 1000 workers at the company is currently on strike since the start of the summer.

Egypt's State-Controlled Unions Under Pressure

The state-controlled trade union federation has been coming under increasing pressure lately, as the wave of wildcat strikes continues - especially in the textile sector - and different groups of workers and state employees attempt to organize independently. The isolation of the state-controlled unions is underlined by two important developments, unfolding as I'm writing this (check out Hossam Al-Hamalawy's blogg for updates): First, the threat by the tax collectors' independent union to go on national strike on Tuesday to defend their union, secondly the refusal of the workers at Tanta Flax and Oils to suspend their strike (which just entered its third month) despite orders to do so from the state-controlled union. 

Since I'm not in Egypt I can't report on these events directly, but perhaps some (very brief) history would be in place - for those not familiar with the background of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) and its relation to the state. 

As Egypt emerged from the post-WWII economic crisis, strike wave and struggle for national liberation, a vibrant trade union movement had developed. In the early 50's experienced unionists and political activists on the left sought to establish a national federation of trade unions - but their founding conference was banned by the Free Officers after the coup of July 1952. Instead, the federation was founded only in 1957 under the tutelage of the new regime.

During the Nasser era, workers were granted a number of benefits, with one of the most important probably being the strenghtening of employment security, but faced new restrictions on the right to strike and organize independently. This "social contract," as some social scientists would call it, was broken - or made irrelavant - in the 70's. As the neo-liberal wave hit Egypt and Sadat introduced his "intifah" policies, the rapidly increasing gulf between working people and more affluent classes led to an upsurge of the left and a new wave of wildcat strikes around the years 1974 and 1975. 

One of the results of this upsurge of the left and the workers movement was that more than 4000 "leftists" - including both socialists or communists and Nasserists - were elected to positions within the unions in 1976. Many of them were dedicated to strenghtening the independence of the trade union federation, but more importantly they - and many non-ideological unionists - were hard opponents of the politics of liberalization and privatization, which was then only starting to take shape. (I recommend Marsha Pripstein Posusney's Labour and the State in Egypt for a detailed analysis of this period).

The regime responded to this upsurge of workers' militancy and leftist politics in two ways. First, Sadat encouraged islamic movements on the universities (some of which would later turn into militant jihadist groups) to counter the left. Second, the regime cracked down on the radical elements of the trade union movement. The bread riots in January 1977, a spontaneous revolt led by workers and the urban poor against an IMF-sponsored decision to cut bread subsidies, was used as a pretext to arrest hundreds of leftists and radical workers. 

New laws passsed during this period introduced  hard labour as punishment for striking workers and imposed hard restrictions on who could enter trade union elections - anyone considered a member of a group that opposed the "divine laws" of the state was banned. As a consequence, only a little more than a hundred "leftists" won positions in the unions in the 1979 elections - and many of them were jailed in the continued crackdown on the left and labour movement in the following years. In this way, the unions were purged from virtually anyone considered a radical - from communists to non-ideological but comitted unionists - paving the way for the continued push towards economic restructuring along neo-liberal free market-principles.

It should be noted that during the repression of the left during the 70's, some "leftists" decided to break with their past to avoid arrest and save their careers. While some did this out of fear, the more opportunistic ones even joined the NDP. Among the latter we find Aisha abdel Hady, a former member of the socialist Tagammu party that "switched sides" in order to climb through the trade union structure and eventually become minister of manpower - a position she has recently used to denounce strikes as being "incited by the Muslim Brootherhood" and attack the independent press for giving them coverage...

This is something to bear in mind whenever anyone says that Egyptian workers are only raising economic demands and don't care about politics. With the authoritarian state excerting such efforts to manipulate and control the unions - by suspending all resemblance of internal democracy - the line between economic and political demands grows very thin. Any worker raising his or her voice against bad working conditions of low salaries is also engaging in a political act. And when workers feel betrayed by their unions, their anger is quickly directed against the state - since the difference between them is almost non-existent anyway. And when they eventually try and form their own unions that truly represent them, they do so fully aware that the regime will perceive this a serious political challenge that has to be crushed.

Police repression of journalists in Tanta

Joseph Mayton reports on police violence and harrasment against journalists who tried to cover the Tanta Flax & Oil Co. strike: "This is when they started pushing me harder and harder back from the gate. I felt a punch land on my side, but thought little of it as I continued to stand my ground. Finally, a uniformed officer interceded and began talking to me. He was cordial, introducing himself as Ibrahim (24-years-old and straight of the academy). There was no going any further he said and promised to go and talk to the state security chief present. With my six or so-man escort, we made it back to the large, obese man sitting and talking to the American writer who had accompanied on the trip. I said that I was going to walk on the 'public street' and look inside the factory to see what was going on and then I would leave. Every step I would take was followed by at least two, often three or four, men jumping front, fists clenched and ready to pounce. I said that I had a job to do and that I must look into the factory. One of the men said that if I tried again that I would be arrested and driven to the Tanta police station. He looked serious." Read it all.

A clear example of how the strict limits on labour activism (as well as freedom of the press) in Egypt is still in place. The union of textile workers apparently got a green light to support the strike in Tanta, as a token evidence that such actions are tolerated in Egypt. But security agencies still wants to restrict media access to the workers and isolate them in order to break their morale as well as preventing industrial action from spreading.

Tanta strikers block street after worker was refused treatment

Tadamon reports: Striking workers from Tanta Linen Co. blocked a street on Thursday in protest after one of their collegaues, who had collapsed inside the company, was refused treatment at the American Hospital. The workers were told that the owner of the company had cancelled the contract with the hospital for treatment of its workers. The worker was admitted into the hospital for treatment only after police intervened, in order to calm the workers down and clear the street.

As the strike has now been going on for close to a month, Tadamon also reports that workers are increasingly voicing demands for the company to be re-nationalized.

Tanta Linen Co. strike continues despite pressure from government and state security

The Tanta Linen / Flax and Oils Co. strike continues, now on its fourth week, Al-Masry Al-Youm reports. Said Gowhary, head of the general union of textile workers, claims the union will continue to support the workers - "whatever happens" - in spite of pressures from the Ministry of Manpower, the governor of Gharbeya, and state security to end the strike. The Saudi investor who owns the company has so far refused any negotiations. The workers are demanding that their bonuses and incentives are calculated based on the current salary (as stipulated in the law) rather than the salary when the company was privatized, as well as the reinstatement of 9 workers - including 2 unionists - that were fired after a strike in July last year.

Solidarity statement with Tanta workers

An encouraing example of solidarity among Egyptian workers and civil servants: "The committé for solidarity with Tanta Linen Co. Workers" - including Mahalla textile workers, The real estate tax collectors union in addition to political activists and rights groups - released a statement in support of the demands of the Tanta workers who have been on strike for three weeks. The statement also criticizes the government for refusing to protect the worker's rights and demands that the privatization of the company, that was sold to a Saudi investor in 2005, is cancelled.

State union v.s. foreign capital

Workers at the Tanta Flax and Oil Company (sometimes confusingly referred to as Tanta Linen Co.) are coming under pressure from the management in an attempt to abort a strike that has been announced for May 31, Tadamon reports. The head of the local union has been forced to take a month's "vacation" without salary and is being accused of assaulting another worker.

According to workers at the company, the management also sent a letter to the General Union of Textile Workers asking it to dismiss the local union representatives (who are supposedly elected by the workers) and withdraw its backing for the strike. Two workers I spoke to yesterday welcomed the support of the union, while remaining cynical about the motives behind it: "They are afraid of independent unions, that's why they are acting now," one of them said.

Just like in Sheeben el-Kom, this company was sold to a foreign investor a few years ago (in this case a Saudi sheikh), which may be one of the reasons why the state-controlled union has chosen to intervene in this particular case. Feeling the pressure from intensifying attempts to organize workers independently, the union is trying to regain som legitimacy by backing workers against foreign capital, in a way they are still not prepared to do when it comes to companies owned by the state or Egyptian investors.

More background can be found in this report by Sarah Carr: State-run union backs textile workers’ strike.