Public transportation is one of the strategic sectors in which the government deems striking illegal Close Up Marginal Investment This country is home to millions of Sudanese migrants, a community that experts believe has the potential to stoke economic development — if someone would let it Public transportation is one of the strategic sectors in which the government deems striking illegal By Khaled Habib Essam El-Erian, secretary-general of the Doctor’s Syndicate Party politics between the NDP and Muslim Brotherhood lessen the impact of protests, like this one at the Lawyer’s Syndicate By Khaled Habib Yasser Abdel Gawad, a lawyer formerly active in the syndicate’s Freedoms and Arab Affairs Committees Number of protests by year (including strikes, sit-ins and public demonstrations): By Mohsen Allam The Journalists Syndicate’s headquarters

Metro driver Fathy El-Dardiry knew little about the trouble he was about to cause when he refused to let a Cairo judge ride in his driver’s cabin at the height of the afternoon rush hour in mid-November. Those were the rules, he reasoned, what could the judge possibly do to retaliate?

Still, days later, on November 24, he was arrested and held pending a police investigation into the judge’s allegations that El-Dardiry verbally and physically assaulted him. Unfair? Perhaps, if we are to believe El-Dardiry’s side of the story. Unfortunately, history tells of too many similar incidents for logic to dismiss his as a mere exception.

That said, few will remember November 24, 2005 as the day this 16-year Metro Authority veteran got arrested. Instead, they will recall the day he was released, thanks to a three-hour sit-in staged by 30 of his coworkers on the tracks of Downtown’s Ahmed Orabi station that effectively halted train activity to three additional surrounding stations.

El-Dardiry has since been reinstated, but still faces charges stemming from the judge’s allegations. His trial, postponed last month, is expected to resume at the end of January.

“Whether we’re talking about professional or labor syndicates, you have to realize that their very composition is the reason behind their weak performance.”

As dramatic and successful as the Metro drivers’ sit-in was by Egyptian standards, the fact remains that very few similar protests in the nation’s troubled labor–state relations past have enjoyed such happy endings. Even remote followers of labor issues can recall the post-revolution 1952 Alexandria textile workers’ strike, which ended with the deaths of several workers and the prosecutions of strike leaders after the Army was called in to restore order. More recently, one worker was killed, 13 injured and dozens jailed after the authorities broke up the 1989 iron and steel workers’ sit-in.

In an economy where industrial production contributes about 20% of gross domestic product, according to government figures, some argue the country simply cannot afford worker strikes.

“There was a mistake made a long time ago with the Egyptian worker and that was oppressing him. That’s what reduced his productivity.” says one Egyptian investor in the printing industry who asked not to be identified. “The evidence is when that worker leaves Egypt, he flourishes and becomes very successful because there is order and fairness. That is what needs to be implemented here. But we are still in a development phase. That phase requires cooperation, not oppression, whether it comes from the labors’ side or the private sector.”

The question most labor activists ask now is not whether past strikes and the deaths that arose from them could have been prevented had the state been less aggressive in its response, but whether the strikes themselves would have taken place had the laborers’ respective unions made serious efforts on their behalves to reach deals with their employer: the state.

“What we see today is most of the 23 leaders of syndicates are past the age of retirement, and, without exception, all are NDP members.”

Many are also questioning how to turn the country’s syndicates back to the roles they occupied originally, prior to the 1952 revolution, and practiced by most of their Western counterparts: active involvement in negotiating the working conditions of their members. Due to what critics say is a structural inability to take on that role, most Egyptian labor and professional syndicates today bear no resemblance to their Western counterparts. The former provides largely social services such as healthcare and even entertainment, while the latter provides its members with outlets to air their political views.

There’s simply no such thing here as a company-specific collective bargaining process.

Although the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), also known as the General Union of Egyptian Workers, provides numerous social services, history has failed to document one instance in which it has backed a strike staged by a group of its members. The union comprises 23 labor syndicates that control more than 2,000 local committees made up of an estimated 4.8 million mostly public-sector workers in industries ranging from textiles and chemicals to building materials and transportation.

The GFTU is the only legal labor union in Egypt.

The consequences of labor’s toothlessness are potentially dire for workers and employers alike: In 2005, the new privatization process led by Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin, saw angry laborers worried about their job security under the new owners of their facilities several times.

In February 2005, Qalyub’s Esco Textiles workers made headlines over the course of their three-month sit-in to protest the government’s sale of their factory to prominent business leader Hashem El-Deghri for what they allege were millions under its valuation price and for allegedly not informing them, as 10% part-owners, of the sale. In the end, the offer of LE 10,000 early retirement packages and promises that none of their rights under the 2003 labor law would be violated were enough to send all 400 strikers home unceremoniously.

As in countless other privatization cases, even the Esco workers who managed to hang on to their jobs now have no legal identification with their syndicate or GFTU. The new labor law does not guarantee their right to unionize as private-sector employees.

“It’s the intervention of political parties and the struggle to gain control over the syndicate that has hurt it the most and distracted it from pursuing the best interests of its members.”

Making up an estimated 20 million-strong work force, Egypt’s working class remains perhaps the most unorganized in the region because most of its members do not belong to unions, says Kamal Abbas, director of the Center for Trade Union Workers Services. Those that do are split between government-controlled labor syndicates and conflict-riddled professional ones that offer very little in the way of traditional support and activism in workplace rights issues. Instead, most are more concerned with becoming political forces on the national scene and are largely controlled by an elite core of professional organizers.

“Whether we’re talking about professional or labor syndicates, you have to realize that their very composition is the reason behind their weak performance,” Abbas says. “We have huge union institutions that are simply ineffective.”

Unlike union systems in the US and Europe, Egyptian private-sector employees face a series of challenges when it comes to unionization. Although the new labor law gives them the right to register as GFTU members, it lacks the mechanisms to protect those who try to organize. For example, the law gives any group of at least 50 workers the right to form a local committee at their workplace and register with their respective syndicate. What the law fails to guarantee is the workers’ jobs after their employer is informed by the syndicate of the existence of their committee. More often than not, they are fired immediately because the law places no restrictions on the employer’s right to replace them.

But even if workers are guaranteed the right to unionize, they still face the same problems as their unionized government-employed counterparts. The law gives no specific right to labor or professional syndicates to collectively bargain their members’ wages, working hours or other general conditions of employment. Collective bargaining has long succeeded in preventing labor disputes from leading to strikes or other protest actions abroad. But here, employers continue to have the right to unilaterally set employment conditions.

Sometimes the collective bargaining process is advantageous in keeping communication open between the two sides, even if there are sizable disagreements. In last month’s New York City’s Transit Workers’ Union strike, collective bargaining negotiations were partially credited for the union’s decision to send its members back to work after just three days. In Egypt, where such a process is rarely practiced, strikes and sit-ins have been known to last months during which direct communication between the employer and strike leaders might never take place.

Although professional syndicates have traditionally been more influential in protecting members’ rights and performing activist work on social and political levels, nearly two decades of internal political struggles over presidency and board membership between the governing National Democratic Party and the Muslim Brotherhood have left most in shambles. With some groups including the doctors, engineers and commerce syndicates having been prevented by the conditions set in the Professional Syndicates Law 100 of 1993 from holding elections for more than a decade, members charge that they have now become as disconnected from their own executives.

Yasser Abdel Gawad, a lawyer formerly active in his syndicate’s Freedoms and Arab Affairs Committees, says the elections recently held by the Lawyers’ Syndicate offer some perspective on the state of professional syndicates as a whole. In the February presidency fight, Nasserist Sameh Ashour won over the government and Brotherhood-backed Ragai Attiya. Ashour resorted to publicly making subtle pro-government comments in order not to lose his leftist base, improving his chances of winning. The strategy worked, and Ashour won in a landslide.

In all, Abdel Gawad says the interference of politics in what are traditionally civil institutions has done much to damage their abilities to simply do their jobs.

“There’s nothing wrong with the politicization of the syndicate. Politics naturally have to be a priority in the syndicate’s dealings and position-taking,” says Abdel Gawad. “It’s the intervention of political parties and the struggle to gain control over the syndicate that has hurt it the most and distracted it from pursuing the best interests of its members.”

Still, finding an outlet to air their political views might actually be less than conciliatory for those educated enough in employment issues to know the potential power of their respective syndicates to demand wage increases, job safety standards, better healthcare coverage and reasonable retirement packages.

Regardless of whether or not any member of the country’s 20 million workers belongs to a union or a professional syndicate, the fact is few are educated enough to know what their legal rights are on the job, says Abbas. Those that do find few resources at their disposal to demand those rights. The result: more than 200 workers’ protests per year, in recent years, few of which were considered successful by their members in achieving their original goals.

In strikes such as Esco’s, where participants feel so strongly about their issues that they will refuse to give up easily, many employers have resorted to patience. Leaving the workers in their place, for months sometimes, drains their energy and forces a more acceptable final agreement with their employer.

According to Land Center for Human Rights (LCHR) figures, the first half of 2005 saw 109 worker protests including strikes, sit-ins and public demonstrations. The number represents a 30% increase from the first half of 2004. That year ended with 265 protests, a record since the local NGO began keeping track in 1997.

And while analysts have faced difficulty in gauging the economic impact of those protests, some have called them a necessary evil as the country moves through one of the most sensitive phases in its economic metamorphosis to full-fledged capitalism: that of selling state-owned assets. As a result, Abbas criticizes the new labor law of 2003 for abandoning the minimum wage requirement and legalizing, but making impossible, the organization of legal worker strikes.

GFTU President El-Sayed Rashed refutes claims that his organization sold out in participating in the drafting and approval of the legislation, Law 12 of 2003.

“This law is the culmination of 12 years of continuous hard work and negotiation,” says Rashed, a former NDP deputy speaker of Parliament and Cabinet member. “Have you ever heard of a law taking 12 years to develop? That’s because we wanted to make sure all measures are taken to ensure our workers’ rights. It’s a law that deals with modern labor issues effectively and grants more rights than ever. I have personally received complaints from many businessmen who think it is unfair to them.”

Rashed also serves on the High Committee for Minimum Wage established in late 2003 to raise the previous minimum of LE 140 per month. It has yet to issue a new minimum wage.

Lost among the bureaucrats’ debates on how to deal with a restive workforce and the common worker’s daily budgeting to allow for transportation, meals and cigarettes are history’s records of the first known labor strike, credited to none other than the Egyptian worker.

Angered by a three-week delay in receiving their promised payment of food and beer and furious at widespread corruption among their supervisors, Deir El-Medina (nearby the city of Thebes) tomb workers went on strike around 1500 BC under the reign of Ramsis III. The strike was preceded by a brief work stoppage. Then, citing the corruption of their supervisors, and after gaining the support of the local police chief, they left a detailed scribed message, walked out and went home.

“The prospect of hunger and thirst has driven us to this; there is no clothingthere is no fish, there are no vegetables. Send to Pharaoh, our good lord, about it, and send to the Vizier, our superior, that we may be supplied with provisions,” read one message, which prompted supervisors to release supplies that same day.

“For sure, it is not because of hunger that we (have left), but we have a serious charge to make; for sure, something bad has been done in this place of Pharaoh,” read another document that went on to describe instances of tomb robbery and adultery committed by the supervisors.

Nearly four millennia after the walkout, today’s Egyptians could not be further off the tracks set by their ancestors.

Essam El-Erian, Doctors Syndicate secretary-general and a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader, says that modern Egyptian culture has evolved to the point where labor protests are considered inappropriate means of resistance and are even shunned by a significant segment of society. This, he reasons, goes back to the general lack of understanding of the concept of a peaceful protest.

“The culture of peaceful protest simply does not exist now in ways that could be put into practice,” says El-Erian. “Egypt has seen some strikes in its modern history, but they have been few and short in duration. In addition, the government’s cruelty in response ensured they are not repeated.”

Logically, one would have expected former President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s policy of Arab socialism to create a workforce nothing less than dominant in its dealings with its main employer, the government. Nasser rolled all labor syndicates under the authority of GFTU to give them more bargaining power and made membership in those syndicates mandatory to guarantee participation at the workers’ level.

However, since GFTU leadership continues, for all practical purposes, to be government-appointed, a significant gap predictably formed and progressively distanced workers from their own unions, says Abbas. And since membership was never classified as the workers’ decision, few efforts are made today to improve services offered to them (more on that in a minute).

Although the reaction of Ramsis III to his workers’ strike was never recorded, the response of post 1952 Revolution governments to similar situations has been marked by little flexibility. Time and again, security forces were called in to surround the protesters, which often led to the outbreak of violence, such as in the 1976 public transportation workers’ strike involving an estimated 27,000 workers and the 1986 railroad workers strike, also involving thousands.

Even those who do stage such forms of protest today are reluctant to classify their actions as ‘strikes’ or ‘sit-ins.’ Khaled Shaaban, a fellow Metro driver of El-Dardiry’s, says he refuses to recognize the November sit-in on the tracks as anything more than an “expression of our feelings of discontent.”

“It was not a strike or a sit-in because business went on as usual for most of the line,” Shaaban says. “We, as Metro drivers, cannot stage sit-ins because we perform an essential national public service and we are simply not that irresponsible.”

One organization that felt the drivers’ “expression” was irresponsible is their own, the Railroad Workers Syndicate. Abbas says the syndicate’s reaction was predictable because of the large disconnect between its leadership and members. As is the case in 17 out of the 23 labor syndicates, the organization’s president was unanimously nominated and approved by its board for the 2001-2006 term, according to LCHR.

“In order to measure the effectiveness of an organizational authority, you have to measure how connected it is with its members or how much does it represent them; how democratic is it?” says Abbas. “What we see today is most of the 23 leaders of syndicates are past the age of retirement, and, without exception, all are NDP members. Some are even workers whose factories have been privatized and have no legal justification for even being members of the union.”

Rashed, on the other hand, is convinced his organization has succeeded in representing workers over the years, though he does not identify specific incidents, and believes the fact that most labor syndicates have not seen a change of leadership in more than a decade is a sign of stability.

“Democracy in our country has surpassed all boundaries, but it means we have to do everything in terms of negotiation to reach agreements, not strike and protest at our whim,” says Rashed. “Besides, why should we force our syndicates to have elections when their members can agree within themselves on who is best to lead? What’s wrong with stability? Why do we have to have election fights every round in order to be democratic?”

Rashed, 74, is a veteran of the textile industry. Before reaching his current post, he served as president of the Textile Workers Syndicate. He has headed GFTU, where he has remained uncontested, since 1992.

Organizations feel no obligation to satisfy their members because their recruitment is done for them.

“To begin with, [GFTU] membership is mandatory for all workers in public-owned factories, schools, hospitals, etc.,” says Abbas. “This automatic relationship gave the union a huge membership, but it’s only on paper. When membership is voluntary, the organization has to strive to convince non-members to join and current members to stay by offering them protective services. Otherwise, if members are not satisfied they might opt to leave for another union; but that also is non-existent.”

Moreover, workers are unable to establish their own unions on a large scale due to the lack of education in workers’ rights matters and the pressures of everyday life on limited incomes, Abbas adds. Therefore, unless strikes are held in strategic sectors such as transportation or healthcare, although banned by law, they are not likely to produce the desired results.

Lacking effective means to lobby for members’ rights, labor syndicates and even some professional ones, have turned into charitable organizations, offering services ranging from reduced-cost healthcare to housing, vacations, burial services and even direct, though usually meager, financial assistance.

“We provide health insurance for our members because they’re not covered,” says Mohammed El-Damalawy, president of the Land Transportation Worker Syndicate’s Cairo chapter. “We’re currently lobbying for Parliament to approve their inclusion in the general pension fund, and we have built a state-of-the-art resort in El-Arish for their exclusive use.”

On the professional end, where members have been relatively more successful in holding elections in organizations such as the Journalists and Lawyers Syndicates and the Judges’ Club, the NDP-Brotherhood struggle for power has detracted from their abilities to pressure the government into enacting bold reforms in favor of their members, says Abdel Gawad.

The Journalist Syndicate, for example, has organized little beyond isolated demonstrations on its lavish stairway to pressure Parliament to implement President Hosni Mubarak’s initiative to ban the imprisonment of journalists for publishing offenses. Also, protests of the Judges’ Club concerning violations committed in the recent Parliamentary elections have yet to yield results beyond Cabinet promises of investigating the alleged violations of voter fraud and interference with judges’ supervisory duties. Worth noting, though, is the marked improvement in allowing full judiciary supervision over last September’s presidential elections after the club repeatedly threatened to boycott the event.

El-Erian agrees the interference of politics in professional syndicates’ activities has negatively impacted their abilities to fight more aggressively on behalf of their members, but says politically-minded syndicate members had little other choice.

“Professional syndicates have been successful, to some extent, in freeing themselves from the government’s grip because of the members’ positive implementation of the democratic process in the 1980s which, fortunately, led to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood’s role in these syndicates,” says El-Erian. “Since Brotherhood leaders already endorsed a serious reform agenda, and in the absence of effective opposition parties, syndicates were able to establish their presence on the political and social arenas.”

Outside the vocal protests of local human and labor rights NGOs, very little has changed in the past 50 years in workers’ approach to dealing with labor disputes.

The law is the first to give workers the legal right to strike and protest, though certain conditions make that right virtually unattainable. For example, would-be strikers must first petition their syndicate, which must approve the action by a two-thirds majority of its board. Once the first step is accomplished, the strikers must inform the business owner of their intent 10 days in advance and declare in writing the planned duration of their protest. The law also gives the prime minister the right to exempt certain sectors deemed ‘strategic’ to national security such as transportation, healthcare, military production and bread ovens.

Still, some consider the law an improvement over its 1981 predecessor. For one, it establishes the 48-hour, six-day work week and sets unprecedented overtime rates at 135% of the normal wage during daytime, 170% at night, 200% on days of rest and 300% on official holidays. Despite lacking a minimum wage clause, the legislation sets 7% as the minimum required annual wage increase (essentially a cost-of-living allowance) for all public- and private-sector employees.

When it comes to protests, though, Abbas says workers have generally not paid much attention to the law because they have long been used to protesting on their own. The law, he adds, has not been successful in regulating such actions, which have actually increased in frequency since its passage. Still, he attributes the increase to worsening economic conditions at the workers’ level as more public-sector companies are privatized, leaving many relatively under-compensated and, most of all, jobless.

Oddly enough, one of the highest-profile worker protests in 2005 could not have been a greater violator of the new labor legislation; in fact, some consider it the most successful in serving its participants’ interests. Last March’s five-day air traffic controllers’ sit-in was felt on an international level as dozens of flights were delayed or cancelled daily. In all, 120 strikers in five of the nation’s international airports, including Cairo and Sharm El-Sheikh, demanded better pay, better retirement packages and an end to alleged favoritism for retired air force veterans who were allegedly handed upper management positions ahead of seasoned controllers.

In carrying out their protest, the controllers decided to handle the minimum number of aircraft per minute in order to delay, but not completely shut down, air traffic. Meanwhile, Minister of Civil Aviation Ahmed Shafiq held firm in his refusal to negotiate and even ordered the firing of several strike leaders. Government newspapers carried condemnation from Shafiq as well as GFTU officials, calling the controllers’ action illegal and unpatriotic.

On the fifth day, as losses reached more than $30 million by one ministry estimate, the strikers received a personal letter from President Mubarak that they cited as the main reason for ending their protest.

But the truce would only last until May, when the controllers repeated their demands and renewed their sit-in one more time. This time, Shafiq reportedly fired five more strike leaders and became even more adamant in his rhetoric. “You are traitors and you should be executed,” Shafiq was reported as telling the strikers publicly in Al-Ahram Weekly. “I am willing to do it, but via legal channels.”

Another $30 million in losses later and the controllers would once again return to work, this time claiming victory. In the end, strike leaders reported they had received verbal promises to raise their salaries by 100% by 2008, awarded individual retirement packages reaching LE 470,000 and promised the rehiring of four of the five dismissed strike leaders. The claims remain unconfirmed by the ministry.

But while some see a change in government policy over the years in the increased use of dialogue instead of security forces to deal with labor disputes, El-Erian says the apparent shift is just the product of necessity.

“If transport workers strike anywhere in the world, the government will deal with them in a special way because they control a vital component of the country’s economy,” says El-Erian.

Rashed, on the other hand, would neither support nor condemn the controllers’ protest. Instead, he maintains all negotiation tools must be utilized before workers can make such a decision, which can only be legally made with GFTU’s approval.

“From my point of view, as a union leader, my members are always right in case of a strike or a protest, even if they are wrong,” says Rashed. “If they are indeed found wrong in their actions, there are always ways to deal with them internally.”

The nation’s changing economic landscape will inevitably inspire many more future disputes. Could the increase in success rates of such protests help educate millions on worker rights and contribute to the development of the ‘peaceful protest culture’ whose lack many cite as the main reason for their current suffering? El-Erian says there’s no simple answer.

“The issue of labor unions is a very complex one and it will need support on the entire social level in order to achieve successful reforms,” El-Erian says. “The labor force itself needs to mobilize in order to have elections as a first step. Today, even if we have a syndicate that embraces a fight for better working conditions or better pay, it will not succeed because the protest culture itself is non-existent.”

But even if that culture is allowed to grow, some economists argue the country then faces the threat of losing local and foreign investment from companies that are attracted to Egypt specifically for its cheap labor. One indication, admitted even by Rashed, is the fact that most private-sector industrial companies will not allow their employees to unionize. More than 90% of private sector workers are unable to create official committees to join GFTU, according to LCHR figures.

Such concerns are legitimate considering current trends, Abdel Gawad says, but some investors are beginning to form alternative views of the dynamics of labor relations. More and more of those looking to invest in developing economies are beginning to see the connection between the protection of worker rights and their productivity, he adds.

“When you have a worker that is satisfied, they are logically more productive,” Abdel Gawad says. “I think a lot of investors now feel more comfortable coming to a country that protects its workers’ rights because that guarantees that it will take extra care to ensure the investors’ rights.” bt