[NYTr] Civil servants strike, protest in Egypt

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Dec 20, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/egypt-1220

Civil servants strike, protest in Egypt

By G. Dunkel

Many of the workers in local tax collection offices in Egypt are no
longer youths, but they have been coming out into the streets,
confronting the cops, trying to occupy the office of the official union
that is supposed to represent all the workers in Egypt, and carrying
out a hunger strike in front of Cabinet offices. This militancy is a
sure sign that their living conditions are harsh and worsening.

The tax workers told reporters that they make $50 to $80 a month after
decades of employment at jobs that can often be dangerous—because
farmers bitterly resent the taxes they are forced to pay. Inflation is
high in Egypt; independent economists put the real rate around 16
percent yearly.

This tax collectors’ struggle is part of a wave of strikes and workers’
protests in Egypt over the past two years. Hundreds of actions have
taken place, at times involving tens of thousands of workers,
particularly in the textile mills in the delta south of Alexandria.

Workers have won some significant victories. The government has
hesitated to engage in the kind of mass repression it has used against
students and intellectuals demanding democracy. The regime focuses more
on picking off workers’ leaders and closing organizing centers.

The tax collectors are all state employees who work for the property
tax department. They began their struggle in October when 55,000 tax
workers struck. In early December, tax workers from all over
Egypt—variously estimated at a few hundred by the AP to thousands by an
Egyptian journalist—began an “indefinite picket and hunger strike” in
front of Cabinet offices in Cairo. They have done this despite the
refusal of the official union to support the strike.

One of the protesters told the German Press Agency (DPA), “We could be
dismissed from work, we could be imprisoned or beaten up by security
police, but we don’t care any more.”

“We fear nothing. We just want our rights back,” another cried out.

The protesters say they will collect no taxes until their demands are
met. Such a stoppage could have a serious impact on the finances of
Egypt’s provinces and rural communities.

Calling the finance minister, the head of the official labor union, and
even members of the Cabinet “liars, scoundrels and thieves,” the
protesters said they stood alone, “poor, hungry and no better than
beggars.”

Leaders of the strike say the government has so far not responded to
demands that they be treated like their colleagues in departments run
by the Ministry of Finance.

“They have no hearts, no children or wives or parents,” a protester
told DPA, describing how “inhuman” the authorities were. “We are
spending our days here on the bare pavement and they feel nothing for
us. Where is the mercy?”

Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak is the most important ally of U.S.
imperialism in the Middle East, after Israel. A major question for
progressives outside of Egypt is how this strike wave is going to
affect the U.S. drive to dominate the oil, and profits derived from
this oil, in the region.

Joel Beinin and Hossam el-Hamalawy wrote in an article about a strike
in the textile industry, “Some of the strike leaders contacted leftist
Kifaya activists in Cairo to ask for their support ... suggesting that
they are beginning to consider political issues beyond their immediate
economic demands, perhaps including regime change.” (MERIP online, May
9)

The authors concluded, “The mere fact that a workers’ movement has
persisted and achieved as much as it has is eloquent testimony that the
struggle between labor and capital is alive and well—and likely to
intensify as the neoliberal project in Egypt advances.”

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