CSM: Amid violent riots, Egyptian elections fizzle

Amid violent riots, Egyptian elections fizzle

The opposition Muslim Brotherhood, facing repression, failed to harness growing public discontent.

By Liam Stack Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
April 9, 2008

Cairo - Finally, after a two-year postponement, Egypt's polls opened Tuesday for municipal council elections. But hardly anyone came.

In Cairo's Manyal neighborhood, many residents said they did not realize there was an election. Among those who were aware, many said voting was useless, with candidates loyal to President Hosni Mubarak running unopposed in 90 percent of the races.

"I voted last time but this time I won't because I don't think it is going to be fair," says Hany, a young man who declined to give his last name. "It makes all of us feel like the government is only doing what it wants, and doesn't care about what we want."

The elections are being held at a time of burgeoning economic unrest and ongoing political repression. Public discontent with the regime is widespread, and opposition groups appear unable to successfully mobilize this growing dissent.

The weeks before Tuesday's vote were marked by a systemic campaign to block regime critics from running in the contest, which had been postponed since April 2006. At the center of the crackdown were the arrests over the past several weeks of 1,000 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition group.

The Brotherhood, which holds a fifth of parliament's seats, says it had planned to support 10,000 candidates for 52,000 posts on local councils at the town, city and province level across Egypt. But faced with intimidation and bureaucratic technicalities, fewer than two dozen managed to get their names on final election lists.

On Monday, the Brotherhood pulled their candidates from the race and called on Egyptians to boycott the vote, saying that it would not reflect the will of the Egyptian people.

"The regime has adopted a strategy to keep us from competing with them in elections – they decided they would start arresting people, detaining people, and trying some of them in front of military courts," says Mohamed Habib, the group's deputy leader. "They want to have the security apparatus control the whole country, and put the Brotherhood on the sidelines of political life so it can not be an active participant in it."

The government also tried, through state-run media, to intimidate prospective participants in a general strike called by secular opposition groups over the weekend. In the first major attempt by opposition groups and intellectuals to coordinate actions with labor activists, the strike was planned to coincide with a worker's strike at the state-run Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla. The factory is the largest public-sector firm in the Middle East and a national icon.

But both strikes were thwarted by a combination of worker infighting and a crackdown by state security, which arrested 150 labor leaders early Sunday morning. Protests erupted in Mahalla late that afternoon when townspeople, including a large number of women and children, gathered in the main square to protest the morning arrests as well as a skyrocketing inflation rate, which has nearly doubled the price of many staple foods in the last three months. Nearly 40 percent of Egypt's 80 million people live at or near the poverty line of $2 a day.

The protest turned violent when thugs hired by security services, called baltageyya, began pelting demonstrators with stones, according to witnesses.

"One minute there was nothing, and then suddenly there were big crowds of people and state security officers and baltageyya," says Joel Beinin, a labor historian and professor of Middle East Studies at the American University in Cairo, who was present at the Mahalla demonstrations.

"The baltageyya started throwing rocks very carefully, like they were firing volleys. They aimed very high so they would arc up and then fall on people's heads."

According to Ahmed Seif, Director of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, rioting spread across the city as police pursued demonstrators from neighborhood to neighborhood firing tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and live rounds of ammunition. Protesters responded with stones, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

Monday afternoon saw new clashes when a crowd of young men tore down a large portrait of President Mubarak in the city's main square. Demonstrators also burned banks, schools, buses and shops. Estimates of those injured in the violence range from 80 to more than 150. Local media reported up to five killed.

"Workers and people from the town came out in to the streets all around the factory without any organization, breaking things and setting them on fire," says Syed Habib, a Mahalla labor organizer reached by phone after the riots. "Everything has come to a standstill. The only thing working now is the factory."

Observers say the outburst of violence in an iconic factory town, as well as the inability of opposition movements to organize a strike, demonstrates both the disorganization of the Egyptian opposition and the deep frustration felt by many Egyptians across the boundaries of social class.

"The regime knew it could not let a general strike happen and that any movement that came from the working classes as well as [the] intellectual [classes] is not a good sign for them," says Mr. Beinin. "The regime reacted very, very strongly, judging correctly that this was a potentially very serious challenge to them," he added. "But what happened surely indicates that opposition movements are very disorganized."

DNE: Responses to worker unrest a government tactic, says observer

Responses to worker unrest a government tactic, say observers

By Liam Stack
First Published: October 3, 2007

CAIRO: Life in the delta town of Mahalla was disrupted last week by a boisterous strike at the mammoth Ghazl El Mahalla industrial complex, where 27,000 workers walked off the job and took up residence with their families in a tent city inside the factory gates.

At energetic rallies in front of the factory gates, workers banged drums and chanted slogans against a cast of would-be villains including their local government-appointed union committee, the chairman of the board of Misr Spinning and Weaving, and the World Bank.

They demanded a host of changes ranging from the payment of promised bonuses to the dissolution of Egypt’s union system and the overthrow of President Mubarak.

The strike had its roots in a similar protest last December. That strike ended when management and the state promised to improve working conditions and include employees in a profit-sharing deal that would pay them a bonus equal to 150 days wages if the company turned a profit of more than LE 60 million.

At the end of the fiscal year in July, Misr Spinning and Weaving posted profits of more than LE 170 million although workers only received a bonus of 20 days’ pay.

Worker leaders reacted with outrage. They accused the management of reneging on its promises and began to organize for a new action.

After striking for six days, the workers’ negotiating team abandoned many of their more radical political demands and focused instead on winning a verbal commitment to the payment of their bonuses. In talks that stretched late into the night, the two sides agreed upon a deal that independent observers say is both financially generous and politically significant.

“The settlement is pretty remarkable for a couple of reasons,” said Joel Beinin, the director of the Middle Eastern Studies department at the American University in Cairo.

“In terms of the economic issues, the workers pretty much won everything they wanted, and they did it pretty quickly.”

According to Sayed Habib, a leader of the Mahalla movement, the management agreed to pay the workers an immediate bonus equal to 70 days’ wages. They also pledged to pay a later bonus of 60 days’ wages after consulting with the firm’s administrative general assembly.

While management failed to commit to the principle of profit-sharing, they promised that future bonuses will be larger than in the past and will also be tied to an annual salary increase of seven percent.

The negotiations did score some political victories even though they did not result in extreme changes such as the overthrow of the regime or the dissolution of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) — a government body formed in 1957 and widely seen as a tool of state repression.

Chief among them was the forced resignation of company CEO Mahmoud El Gibali and the firm’s board of directors.

“That is a pretty political thing to do, considering that this is a public sector company and those guys are all government appointees,” says Beinin.

Additionally, the chairman of the factory’s local union committee also resigned after he was hospitalized following an attack by a group of striking workers. Like all members of the local union committee, he too was appointed by the state.

As the largest and one of the oldest public sector enterprises in Egypt, Ghazl El Mahalla has always served as one of the bellwethers of labor unrest. What workers there win from the state, workers elsewhere can be expected to demand as well.

For that reason, Beinin thinks Mahalla will inspire more strikes in the coming months, and that the regime will most likely continue to appease workers’ economic demands while overlooking the political ones.

“The Mahalla workers are in an almost unique position vis-à-vis the government because their legitimacy is unassailable,” he told Daily News Egypt.

“Their enterprise is the flagship enterprise of Egyptian economic nationalism, and unlike many textile firms, it is profitable. But the workers there are paid a pathetic amount of money that it is impossible to raise a family on.

“Everyone but the business elite supports them,” he added. “I think the regime has either decided that it should help them, or that it has to.”

The government’s conciliatory approach to labor unrest is in stark contrast to the increasingly repressive measures it has taken over the last year against dissent from the middle class and urban intellectuals.

Some, like AUC Professor Saad Eddin Ibrahim, have fled the country. Others, such as newspaper editor Ibrahim Eissa or Muslim Brotherhood leader Khayrat El Shater, have been subjected to grueling trials within the civil or military justice system that critics dismiss as kangaroo courts.

While it appears the regime is trying to smother working class dissent with financially favorable settlements, Beinin warns that the regime’s willingness to pay out could quickly harden if workers pressed their demand for the dissolution of the ETUF.

“The demand for an independent labor union has been around for at least a decade, but there has never really been any rank-and-file organizing around it,” he says.

“What is happening in Mahalla is the first real instance of that,” he added. “But the regime will fight very, very hard against this demand. Control of the union apparatus is one of its main tools for retaining power and has been for years.”

The distance between the ETUF and workers is the most serious problem in labor politics, says Kamal Abbas, the director of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, which was shut down by the authorities in March.

He says that as long as the union fails to represent workers, more strikes are inevitable.

“The real problem here is that the union is isolated from the workers themselves,” he says. “This problem has not been solved, and because of that and other problems the strikes will just continue.”

“It is just like with anything else,” he added. “If the problems are not addressed, then they will only lead to the same outcomes.”

DNE: Wage concessions end Mahalla strike, leave political demands unaddressed

Wage concessions end Mahalla strike, leave political demands unaddressed

By Liam Stack
First Published: September 30, 2007

MAHALLA EL KOBRA: The Ghazl El Mahalla workers’ movement ended its week-long strike early on Saturday morning after negotiations with management and the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation yielded concessions on wages and working conditions, although the strike’s political demands have not been met.

The strike, which united more than 27,000 employees of Egypt’s largest public sector plant and brought production at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company to a stand-still, was the second to grip the site in the dusty industrial city of Mahalla in less than a year.

The most recent protest began last week, when workers said that management and the ETUF had reneged on a series of promises they made after last December’s strike.

At that time, workers were told that conditions at the factory would improve and that they could participate in a profit-sharing deal that would pay them bonuses equal to 150 days pay if the company turned a profit of more than LE 60 million.

At the end of the fiscal year in July, workers in Mahalla complained that the firm posted profits of more than LE 200 million, but that they had only received a bonus of 20-days pay.

Combined with the abysmal conditions in the plant and what workers call widespread corruption, the broken profit sharing promise ignited a new wave of frustration and militancy among the company’s employees.

“The people on strike are the factory workers, the office workers, the engineers, the people who work in the management building — everyone except for the board of directors,” one protestor, who was afraid to give his name, told Daily News Egypt during the strike.

“We are here because [Minister of Manpower] Aisha Abdel Hady and [Minister of Investment] Mahmoud Mohieddin made promises to us in the last strike but now they say they didn’t promise us anything,” he added. “We are here because they are liars.”

But after one week of high-profile strikes, dubbed “The Mahalla Intifada” by some independent Arabic-language dailies, the management of the firm has renewed its rhetorical commitment to many of those promises.

According to Sayed Habib, a leader of the Mahalla Workers Movement, the management has agreed to pay the workers an immediate bonus equal to 70-days pay and additionally will pay a later bonus of 60-days wages after a meeting of the firm’s administrative general assembly.

They have not agreed to the principle of profit sharing in the future, although they say that future bonuses will be larger than in the past and tied to an annual salary increase of 7 percent. Management has also agreed to consider the days of the sit-in a paid vacation, and says that no worker will be penalized for their participation in the action.

For its part, the government has promised to form a committee in the Ministry of Investment to negotiate hazard pay for workers whose jobs expose them to dangerous conditions or health risks, as many positions in the textile mill do. They will also increase each worker’s clothing allowance.

“We are happy with the deal that was reached,” said Habib. “It is a good deal for us.”

While the concessions made by management are a welcome boon to the lives of some of Egypt’s poorest workers, Saturday’s pre-dawn agreement addressed none of the political demands made by the increasingly politicized Mahalla movement.

After last December’s strike, in which the workers’ local union sided with management against them, the workers’ movement collected over 14,000 signatures calling for the impeachment of local union officials and the dissolution of the ETUF.

They say the national union body is an arm of the state, and cares more about keeping the Mubarak regime in power than it does about defending the interests of the working class.

But the ETUF has consistently ignored the worker’s petitions, and their demands for reform have never been the subject of any negotiation between workers and the state.

Habib says that the movement is “still in discussions” with management about forming a free union, but that in the meantime they are considering other options for exerting pressure on their bosses from within the existing union framework.

“We are thinking about forming a worker’s collective at the factory,” he says. “We hope that a collective would be able to put pressure on the union committee here to listen to us and fight harder for demands we make.”

DNE: Striking Mahalla workers demand government fulfill broken promises

Striking Mahalla workers demand government fulfill broken promises

By Liam Stack and Maram Mazen

First Published: September 27, 2007

Workers at Ghazl el Mahalla complain they are "not treated like human beings."

Photo by Liam Stack

EL MAHALLA EL KOBRA: A crippling strike at Egypt’s largest public sector factory entered its fifth day on Thursday as workers, angry at corruption and what they call a string of lies and broken promises, say they will not end their occupation of the factory until their demands have been met by both the company’s board of directors and by President Hosni Mubarak.

The strike has united more than 27,000 employees of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company, from manual laborers to more highly skilled engineers and clerical staff, and has brought production at the factory in the dusty Delta city of Mahalla to a standstill.

Workers in Mahalla complain of low wages which leave them subject to grinding poverty, abuse by management, corruption, and above all a host of unfulfilled government promises made after a similarly large strike last December.

Workers throughout the company insist that they want nothing more than what is rightfully theirs, and accuse their managers of widespread corruption and violating past agreements.

“We just want them to treat us like human beings,” said one man, who like most of the strikers preferred to remain anonymous for fear of possible reprisals by management or its allies in state security.

“There is corruption in this company,” alleged another man “They treat us badly. There is mismanagement and they are bad at planning for the future.”

“If the chairman gave us the price of one of the iftar meals that he eats, it would be enough to pay us what is rightfully ours,” shouted a third.

In last December’s strike, the shop floor came to a standstill over the non-payment of bonuses workers said they were promised by a government decree guaranteeing public sector employees an annual bonus equal to two months salary.

Ghazl El Mahalla management said that the decree did not apply to workers in public sector factories, but was only meant for employees in government ministries and offices.

The workers’ union, which they say is corrupt and dominated by loyalists of the ruling National Democratic Party, sided with management.

Workers said the union did not represent them and staged a strike despite its opposition, which ended after management and the Ministry of Labor conceded to many of the workers’ demands. They gave the strikers a one and a half month bonus and made a host of other promises, including a commitment to profit sharing.

That profit sharing agreement is at the crux of the new strike, say workers. Under it, management agreed that if Misr Spinning and Weaving turned a profit of more than LE 60 million, then it would set aside 10 percent of that to be distributed among the 27,000 employees. Under the deal, each worker was supposed to receive a bonus roughly equal to 150 days pay.

But workers say that the management has not held up its end of the deal. Over the past year the company has recorded profits of more than LE 200 million, although despite these apparent boom times workers say they have only received a bonus equal to 20 days pay.

They accuse the management of diverting LE 40 million of that profit into private bank accounts, and say that they want the rest of the money they are owed.

“The main problem we have here is that we were promised that if the company made LE 60 million in profit then we would all get paid a bonus out of 10 percent of it,” said one man, who like the other was afraid to give his name.

“The Chairman of the Board told us all that the company made LE 245 million this year, but they only gave us a bonus of 20 days.”

The management of Ghazl El Mahalla refused to comment. When approached by foreign and Egyptian reporters for a response to the worker’s charges, one member of the Board of Directors fled through the streets of Mahalla in a polished Toyota.

After December’s strike, the Mahalla workers movement began a campaign to impeach their local union leaders and abolish the country’s national union body, the General Federation of Trade Unions.

They claim that the General Federation has been co-opted by the Mubarak regime, and is more interested in keeping the regime in power than it is in helping the country’s workers. According to them, what Egypt needs is an independent labor movement.

“We want a change in the structure and hierarchy of the union system in this country,” said Mohamed El Attar, one of the leaders of the workers’ movement.

“The way unions in this country are organized is completely wrong, from top to bottom. It is organized to make it look like our representatives have been elected, when really they are appointed by the government.”

El Attar and seven others were arrested late on Tuesday night and charged with the potentially serious crimes of sabotage, unlawful gathering, the destruction of public property and instigating riots.

But they were released two days later, El Attar says, after police told them that they sympathized with the strike. Their first court session is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29.

Speaking to a crowd of hushed workers in the factory’s Talaat Harb Square just before sunset, El Attar urged them not to give up their fight against the factory management and its allies within the government and state security forces.

For him, the Mahalla strike is not just about wages and benefits, but about the future of the country.

“He built this company for the workers and for the people of Egypt,” he told them, gesturing to a nearby statue of Talaat Harb, a national leader who helped forge Egypt’s economy after independence from Britain. “Every grain of sand in this company is yours. He built it for you, and it still belongs to you.”

But the management of Misr Spinning and Weaving disagrees. They say the company belongs to them. The Board of Directors issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that the company is on a week-long holiday and that any workers who remained on the premises were trespassing on company property and would be open to prosecution.

Workers fear that the sudden declaration of a week-long holiday will be used to justify the use of force against them by state security, which they say has sent soldiers to barricade the factory gates during the night.

Each time soldiers approach the factory, workers say they have outnumbered and intimidated them, but the threat of future violence against the Mahalla strikers and their families is real.

“We have to stay here no matter what,” El Attar told the mostly-male crowd on Wednesday. “Even if a worker, or two or 20 are killed. If you leave your places inside this strike, then you are running away from your blood and your manhood.”

Many in the crowd agreed with El Attar.

“We are ready to die to get what is ours,” said one. “We don’t want anything more than that.”

“We just want our rights,” insisted another. “We are ready to die for our rights.”

But a mood of frustration hangs over the tent city at Ghazl El Mahalla, and many workers say they are angry that factory management and government officials are unwilling to negotiate. Four days into the strike, workers say the only times that they have heard from officials is when they make statements to the media.

“There are no government representatives coming here to try to reach a common ground,” said one man. “The government cannot just abandon people like this.”

So far, it seems the government has little interest in finding common ground with the strikers.

On Wednesday night, Minister of Labor Aisha Abdel Hady appeared on El Beit Beitek, a nightly news magazine show on Egyptian Channel 2, and accused the Mahalla workers of sabotaging the factory machinery. But she later called the workers “loyal, honest and honorable people” and said that she would work to ensure their rights.

Residents of the tent city say they are uninterested in Abdel Hady’s compliments, and angrily deny her accusations of sabotage. They say that they would not sabotage the very machines that provide their livelihood.

To demonstrate that no sabotage has taken place, members of the private security team employed by Misr Spinning and Weaving took two Daily News Egypt journalists inside the locked factory to show them that the machines were in working order.

“We are not sabotaging this factory,” growled one gray-haired worker, showing the machinery to visitors as a uniformed member of factory security stood nearby. “We are guarding these machines. This is our factory. This is where we make our living. We understand that.”

Workers say they want a resolution to the strike, but believe that in the end the only person with the authority to meet their demands is President Mubarak. While some workers say they want him to get more involved in the dispute, others say it is time for his rule to end.

That is the position taken by Mohamed El Attar, the influential worker leader. For him, organizing workers, as in the Mahalla movement, is the way forward for Egypt.

“I want the whole government to resign,” he told the crowd standing in Talaat Harb square, just before the end of the Ramadan fast. “I want the Mubarak regime to come to an end.”

“Politics and workers’ rights are inseparable,” he added. “Work is politics by itself. What we are witnessing here right now, this is as democratic as it gets.”