http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/2385
Egypt's Long Labor History
by Atef Said
THE EGYPTIAN WORKING class is one of the oldest in the region, with a
long history of internationalist solidarity. Egyptian loading and
longshoremen workers in 1947, for example, boycotted the Dutch ship in
Canal Suez in solidarity with the Indonesian people’s independence
struggle. The union of the workers issued a statement against
colonialism in general. They did not allow the ship to service or go
through the Canal despite the resistance and efforts made by English and
French administrators.
The early 20th century began with a wave of strikes, partly in reaction
to discriminatory policies adopted by British colonial administrators
who favored European over Egyptian workers. In 1900 the first trade
union was established, “the league of cigarettes makers.” By 1919
Egyptian workers played a significant role in the anti-colonialist
protests, and two years later 90 trade unions established the National
Federation of Egyptian Workers.
Because of the impact of trade union activism in spreading
anti-colonialism protests as well as socialist ideology, the government
dissolved the federation in 1924. Yet over the next two decades workers
continued protesting against both their working conditions and
colonialism; by the end of the 1940s there were almost 500 unions. In
1946 Egyptian workers and students established what was known as the
higher committee for students and workers against British occupation.
One important critique is that during the 1940s and ’50s the left
adopted the strategy of the nationalist-bourgeoisie first.(1)
One of the most controversial historical periods in the history of the
left and the working class was the period of Gamal Abdel Nasser
(1954-1970). Nasser's regime claimed to be a regime of social justice.
Known in the Arab-speaking Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa as a
leader for the non-allied movement in the context of the cold war,
Nasser was also seen as a supporter to third world liberation
(anti-colonialist) movement. But for the Egyptian working class Nasser
has more complicated and contradictory image.
On the one hand, Nasser was the leader who nationalized Egyptian
economy, transforming it into a state socialist economy. Theoretically
speaking the working Egyptian class “owned” the means of production.
While granting trade unions many rights, Nasser made sure these unions
were designed in a hierarchical structure that put them under the
control of ruling-party officials. One of the significant events during
Nasser's era that may reflect a substantial attitude of the new regime
toward workers with the death penalty of two workers, Mustafa Khamees
and Abdel Rahman al-Baqary. The regime did not tolerate a labor strike
by Kafr al-Dawar workers, just in twenty days after Nasser's coup de
etat.(2) Khamees and al-Baqary were tried by an exceptional court and
were executed because of their leadership of the strike.
The second reason that makes Nasser's period contentiously debated is
the 1956 decision of the Egyptian Communist Party's leaders to dissolve,
based on their argument that socialism was in the making under Nasser.
Many leftists consider this decision a severe mistake. The leaders
invited all the party to contribute to Nasser's socialism. Some party
members rejected the decision and re-established it in 1975.
In the beginning of the 1980s workers expected Mubarak (who took office
following the assassination of Anwar Sadat by Islamist-influenced
military dissidents – ed.) to be a more tolerant president, towards
oppositions including labor activism. One reason for this belief is the
fact that Mubarak started his reign by releasing political leaders and
oppositions who had been arbitrarily detained in the last days of
Sadat's era.
But throughout the 1980s and the 1990s Mubarak's police apparatus
attacked workers’ strikes. In some cases, the police killed workers such
as the case of the steel mill workers' strike in 1989. Strike leaders
were arrested and brutally tortured over several weeks. Other examples
include attacking the textile and spinning workers in Kafr al-Dawar in
1994 and, more recently, Mahala al-Kobra in 2008.
Despite police brutality workers never completely stopped striking, but
the frequency declined. Workers did not see how to stop privatization
and the structural adjustment, and this sapped their militancy. But as
the rate of exploitation went higher, and workers realized that they
were expected to work more and take lower wages, their anger increased.
Significantly in the 1990s, the propaganda machine accompanied
International Monetary Fund polices. For example, the state succeeded in
convincing more than half a million workers to leave their work in an
early retirement program. Many workers regretted their decision. They
ended up without a job, or with a worse job. Many were forced to spend
the compensation.
As new industrial cities were constructed, the government gave huge tax
cuts to investors. But the workers were expected to work sometimes for
12 hours or even more, and were not protected by unions at all. Two
words can sum up the 1990s from the workers’ viewpoint: defeatism and anger.
The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) re-emerged during Nasser’s
era, but it became a hierarchical arm of the state, a way to control
unions and its members. The ETUF structure is a pyramid shaped, with the
union’s units at the bottom and the ETUF on the top. In between are the
21 national general unions to which workers belong. Workers only elect
officers in their unit and can only belong to one general union.
Therefore within the ETUF there is no accountability or real
representation. Since Nasser, the union’s president has been a member of
the ruling party.
Many labor activists have told me that both the general unions and the
ETUF work against workers in most if not in all cases. Many function as
spies against the workers. Despite of the fact that Mubarak's regime
claims that the country has a multi-party system (on paper), trade union
structures have never changed. In fact, due to legal amendments that
increased the trade union’s bureaucratic forms, the term of office has
been increased to six years. According to the official ETUF website(3)
there are 2,200 union units organizing seven million workers. That is,
only 25 % of all Egyptian workers are unionized.
Despite the repressive and bureaucratic features of Egyptian trade
unions, there were many important strikes that worked against the
repressive state and the workers’ acceptance of defeat. One of the most
remarkable workers’ event was a national uprising initiated by Egyptian
workers in January 1977 under the Sadat regime, at the beginning of the
early negotiations with the International Monetary Fund. Known as the
bread uprising, this was a national protest against the government's
intention to raise the prices of basic goods.
The uprising began with textile workers demonstrating in the Supurp
section of Cairo (in the Helwan district) as well as by the navy in the
Alexandria arsenal. Despite the government's defeat, following the
strike the police led a massive wave of arrests of labor activists and
leaders of different socialist groups. The uprising and labor strikes at
this time also exposed the reactionary nature of the ETUF, which worked
against the workers in the uprising.
Many analysts suggest that the 1977 became the Egyptian regime's
nightmare, where workers and opposition groups, mainly leftists were
capable of occupying streets of Cairo and other major cities and gain
the sympathy of the rest of Egyptians. The reason for this was the fact
that the demands of the demonstrators were the decent minimum demands of
most of Egyptians. The uprising was described by many analysts and
activists as Egypt's lost revolution.(4)
Recent facts published by the Egyptian independent paper al-dostor shows
that in 2006 that the annual budget for internal security was $1.5
billion, more than the entire national budget for health care. This
number has increased after the protest waves in 2005 and 2006. Further,
the security police forces comprise 1.4 million officers, nearly four
times the size of the Egyptian army. Several activists and analysts
agree with the paper that Egypt has become a police state, par
excellence, an affirmation that is very common these days among public
intellectuals and activists of human rights.
In his recent book al-a'yam al-akheriya, or the last days, the Nasserite
writer Abdel Halim Qandeel suggests that if we added the number of
police sergeants and formally hired spies (moukhbreen), the total number
of police persons in Egypt would be 1.7 million. He suggests that there
is a police person to every 37 Egyptians (this ratio is double the
number during the pre-Islamic revolution Iranian dictator Reza Bahlavi,
Qandeel suggests).(5)
According to a report published by Reuters on July 13, 2009 , 77 million
of the 80 million Egyptians live on less than $ 1 a day. Around 30 % of
the workforce is unemployed, 7 % of children miss schools because of
poverty. There are no fewer than 100 thousand homeless/ street kids.
While Egypt's official foreign debt is around 12 billion dollars,
several of Mubarak's corrupt ruling elites have stolen almost half this
figure from Egyptian banks without guarantees and left the country with
this money.
Some liberal thinkers in Egypt and beyond often reduce the problems of
Egypt today to issues of corruption or lack of democracy. This
description lacks accuracy. The writer agrees with many activists in
Egypt that Egypt is led by a coalition of corrupt bourgeoisie, a corrupt
ruling technocrats and a dictator.
Despotism works alongside the cruelty of neoliberalism. While the recent
workers' strikes were responding to the brutality of neoliberalism, the
pro-democracy activism was responding to Mubarak's despotism. However,
both kinds of protests (workers against neo-liberal policies and
opposition groups against dictatorship) are expected to coinverge in the
near future, if Mubarak stays in power.
Notes
1. For this reason, there has been an ongoing debate among Egyptian
leftists about the presumable mistake of prioritizing the national
question over social justice issues. Many Egyptian communists,
especially those of the Egyptian Communist Party, made a mistake of
diverting the workers’ struggle towards the national question. Despite
the validity of this critique, it seems to me that such a critique is
exaggerated as it assumes leftist groups had substantial influence
within the working class.
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2. See http://www.etufegypt.com/Etfu_M/E_History_02.htm.
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3. For more details about the history of the Egyptian working-class
struggle see the booklet of Said and Bassiouni’s Banners of Strikes in
the Egyptian Sky, published by the Socialist Studies Center in 2007. The
booklet can be accessed through
http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=429&issue=118.
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4. See a very thorough study about the uprising written by the
leftist journalist and blogger Hossam Al-Hamalawy in this link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12893045/1977-Bread-Uprising.
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5. Bahlavi, like Mubarak, was backed by the U.S. government.
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ATC 142, September-October 2009
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