Lettre du Cermam

Analysis

Strike "April 6" in Egypt: Abortion of a rising labor movement?

Introduction :

During the last years, and in a context of an increasing number of social protestation movements, Egypt has witnessed one of the largest social movements since 1975: The “Mahala EL Kobra” labor’s movement. Since the great strike of December 2006, a "spillover effect" occurred with an increase of the workers' strikes in Egypt. However, the 6th of April 2008 strike, had witnessed a transposition of the "Mahala" workers strike into the national level. The political opposition has based on this strike to declare a general strike in whole Egypt, a strike that never happened unless virtually. The workers' strike, for it, was aborted. Paradoxically, a huge popular uprising, the largest since 1975 has ignited.

In this context, our objective is to present the dynamics of the day April 6 in order to demonstrate: 1 - The limits of the political opposition. 2 – The obstacles that prevent the “Mahala” labor movement from being transformed into a political reality.


1- Strike of April 6: Which role for the political opposition?

Since January, the leaders had already agreed on the fact that April 6 should be a day of strike inside the “Mahala Company” (Sherket EL Mahala), composed of 24 000 workers. The goal of the strike was to put pressure on the Company management for the realization of the workers' demands that have not been achieved so far, especially the wages alignment with the prices and the increase of the workers” minimum wage. Thus, following the labor leaders calls to establish the 6th of April strike, in the 22nd of March 2008, a group of youth decided to forward this call by creating a group on the famous website "Facebook" calling to a general strike because of rising prices in Egypt in general and in solidarity with workers in particular. The number of the virtual participants in that group has reached 70 000 persons. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood and the traditional political parties, the movement "Kefaya" and the party “El A’amal”, the party “Karama”, the party “Wasat” has adopted this claim, conferring it a political potency and consequently a large weight in the media.

But what was the result of the implementation of the labor strike at national level, following its adoption by the political opposition?

Actually, this propaganda was not in the interests of the workers, as it has not only attracted the state- security apparatus who have transformed the Company in particular and the city in general into military barracks, but also urged the GFETU chairman, to force the labor leaders to sign a document in which they confirm dissolving the 6th of April strike. Thus, a week before April 6, the chairman of the pro-government Federation of Unions ordered five of the labor leaders associated with “The Center for Trade Union and Workers Services” (Dar EL Khademat EL Nekabeya Wel Omaleya) -an NGO whose main goal is to help the workers in all matters related to the acquisition of their rights- to sign a document in which they promise to dissolve the 6th of April strike. They were even forced to say those 3 famous words reported by the Egyptian press: "We apologize, we will no longer strike, we will increase the production." The five leaders have therefore justified their position by carrying some of the strictly materials workers' demands such as the increasing of the meal allowance.

Hence it is easily for us to say that if the labor movement with its economical claims fostered a kind of national mobilization, the latter only stifled the labor movement demands, because it based on these demands to achieve a political agenda.

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2-The April 6: A day of national strike?

Indeed, the day April 6 arrived and across Egypt, it was a normal day without any strike. Everyone was at work, showing the gap between the real and the virtual in one hand and between the positive intention and the real capacity of the political opposition in the other hand.

Unlike other Egyptian cities, in “Mahala”, the city that declared the strike and then aborted it under pressure, thousands of people came out in huge demonstrations on the 6th and the 7th of April. An atrocious repression of the security guards took place, around fifty were thrown into prison. In this context, we can analyze the reasons for the huge events of the 6th and 7th of April as follows:

1) The inhabitants of "Mahala" had already taken up the habit of showing thanks to events more or less regularly organized by the committee of political parties since 2006. It is a committee formed by a large number of political parties inside "Mahala".

2) The media effect and its impact. Thus, the day of 6 April arriving, the inhabitants of "Mahala" were all mobilized and waiting for something.

3) These people, greatly frustrated by the rising prices and seeing that the workers have dissolved their strikes, were thus very determined to demonstrate and were just waiting for the first signal. Indeed, the huge reaction in “Mahala” cannot be understood without knowing the relationship, the people maintain with the “Mahala” Company workers: At “Mahala”, in most families, we often find one or two members working in this company. Hence, over time, a natural social bond was therefore established between the workers of the Company on one hand and the inhabitants of the city on the other hand. Indeed, since 1975, the Company was established in the collective memory of “Mahala” citizens as being the place that militate for the violated rights. Thus, if the “Mahala” Company, the great defender of the workers’ rights in particular and of the people of “Mahala” in general aborted its strike, this would result in doubling the frustration. The cries, quite spontaneous of an old woman in the street, just before the huge explosion of the events confirms this fact: "Where are the workers? We can no longer live. We don`t want Mubarak anymore”.

4)The large presence of security forces that surrounded the company and were now very strong in the streets of "Mahala", did not hesitate to provoke the people who, after consecutive provocations gathered and demonstrated. For example, the spontaneous shouts of the old woman that were just followed by a terrible repression, certainly provoked people. Hence, these provocations were the signal that people, doubly frustrated, was just waiting to be mobilized. Young did not hesitate to throw stones at the security men, which recalls the 1975 scene that was already established in the collective memory of “Mahala” citizens and was just waiting for the propitious time to be revived.

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3- Strike of April 6: What impact on the labor movement?

The dissolution of the strike, and the signature given by the five leaders linked to the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services, was never accepted by the other leading labor camps linked to the socialist-oriented “League of textile” (Rabetat EL Ghazl We Nasig) or (EL Rabta). The idea of the latter, which was never achieve otherwise, is to build a league that would include within it all the workmen in the textile sector in Egypt, starting by those of "Mahala". Certainly, the leaders of this camp represent a more radical faction, this is also one of the reasons why the Official Union chairman did not try to negotiate with them. As for « EL Rabta » leaders, the dissolution of the strike-if ever-it stands should take the following form: 1) It would be in exchange for achieving a reasonable number of workers claims, certainly at the head of which the minimum wage, otherwise it would be a concession without concrete exchange. 2) It should be done independently otherwise, a submission vis-à-vis the official union will result.

Certainly, the result of the signature and the dissolution of the strike in this way has been a strengthening of the already existing divisions between the leaders divided between two camps with two logics of militancy, quite different: The labor leaders linked to "The League of textiles" on one hand and the five leaders linked to the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services in the other hand.

1) The first, is the one who has a leftist orientation. While the labor leaders of this camp give first priority to satisfy workers' economic demands, their ideological orientations give their militant actions a political aspect. Hence, their speech seems distant to workers who would rather see their economic demands achieved, to see an ideology enforced. One criticism of this camp is that though it has progressive vision, it is not always aware if it really possesses the means to achieve it. Thus, if the claim of a minimum wage was indeed a legitimate and intelligent claim, as it would end the financial problems suffered by workers, on the contrary, the labor movement in “Mahala” in its present state was unable to push for the realization of such a request, especially because a national wide claim requires a national wide mobilization through the building of alliances. Certainly, this is absent, as the 6th of April strike has shown us.

2)The second camp is constituted of those five leaders that have less political experience and no political ideology, however, these leaders have a real social base and a real presence within the company, a fact that we cannot understand unless we know what kind of leadership those leaders exercise inside the Company. Indeed, we can call it the “leadership of services” style. In other words, their role as leaders is not generated from their capacity to draw long term solutions to the labor problems, as the 1st camp tries to do, but from their capacity to serve the workers by fulfilling their direct material needs. Thus, these 5 leaders have the privilege, not to say disadvantage, of speaking both, the government as well as the workers language: The workers want only to get concrete rapid material gains and the government would only accept the achievement of some economic claims that do not require structural long term revisions. Having the same government language means that the labor leaders are not in a real opposing position and thus not in a perspective of political change. If these leaders are able to speak both the language of political regime and the workers, this would only increase the distance between the two leaders camps since the first camp hands in its militancy, a logic of opposition to the regime.

Conclusion:

The “6th of April" strike showed us a very clear the obstacles that prevent the labor movement in "Mahala" to be transformed in a political reality. These obstacles can be analyzed as follows:

1 - Lack of coalitions and alliances between the labor movement in one hand and other players in the political or civil sphere. However, several studies on social movements have shown that these movements need to build coalitions, if they want to advance change. That was the case in several countries like Brazil where the labor movement has built successful coalitions with the Left parties and Poland where the construction of "Solidarity", the engine of change was only the product of coalitions. However, the 6th of April strike has demonstrated the inability to build such a coalition as reason of the absence of the political opposition itself.
2 - The lack of consensus among “Mahala” labor leaders because of the difference in the logic of militancy. Already the second camp leader, as already seen, is not part of an opposition logic, and consequently it is, in no way, placed in a perspective of change.

In addition to those two factors, the Egyptian regime would never accept that the protest movements exceed the limits of economic claims. The pressure that was put on the labor leaders to sign the document and dissolving the strike in one hand, and the extensive security presence on the day of April 6 in the other hands states that fact.

Nadine ABDALLA
Phd researcher at 'Institut d'Etude Politique (IEP) de Grenoble, France, Research Internship at 'Institut d'Etude Politique de Lausanne, Lausanne University (Unil) and Reseacher assistant associates to CERMAM

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  • Origin CERMAM
  • http://www.cermam.org/en/logs/analysis/strike_april_6_in_egypt_aborti/
  • Publié le 3 December 2009