The number of labour protests in Egypt has witnessed a drastic increase in recent months. Wael Gamal reports "We want our unpaid wages, compensation for 22 years of working and for the damage to our health caused by this work and our right to have decent work." According to Said Abdel-Latif, head of the trade union committee at the Egyptian-Spanish Asbestos Company (Ora Misr) in Tenth of Ramadan City, this is the demand list of the workers who have been occupying their factory since 20 November. Although the factory is an extreme case of labour relations in Egypt, it reveals the general trend. By now eight workers are said to have died of asbestosis, and it is further claimed that 46 others out of a workforce of less than 150 have developed cancer because of the internationally banned chemical. The company director, industrialist Ahmed Abdel-Aziz Loqma, responded to a very late government decision to stop processing the chemical by firing 46 workers and refusing to pay them their wages, which have stagnated for the last 20 years. Since then the workers have been occupying the factory without general trade union support. The case of Ora Misr represents the rising tide of labour protests in recent years culminating in 2004. A recent report by the Land Centre for human rights reveals that from 1998 till 2004 there were more than 1000 workers' protests varying between strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations. Nearly 26 per cent of these happened in 2004 alone. It constitutes a 200 per cent increase compared to 2003. The reasons for the rising tide are numerous. Despite the fact that the Egyptian labour force (15 years and over) was 17.2 million workers in 1996, a rise from against 12.8 million in 1986 and 9.6 million in 1976, the economic liberalisation programme applied in the previous decade resulted in massive layoffs. The public sector shed nearly 60 per cent of its bloated labour force from the beginning of the privatisation programme until mid-2002, 30 per cent of them as a result of the early retirement schemes. While precise data is not yet available, some estimates suggest an additional 100,000 public sector jobs have vanished since then. Restructuring public sector labour was not the only aspect of the liberalisation programme. A flexible competitive labour market was also vital in the intensive effort to increase Egyptian competitiveness through enhancing labour productivity while restraining its cost. This was reflected in the increase of the percentage of working females ó who typically earn lower wages than males for the same work ó to comprise over 15 per cent of the total labour force in 1996. This represented double their share in the mid-1970s and revealed a gender-based shift in the labour force structure. The growth of the economy during the 1990s compensated for the layoffs by creating a working class in the new industrial cities. With the recession, pressure increased on this stratum as well. This was accompanied by the effects of the pound's devaluation, bringing prices hikes which meant a drop in real wages for cash-wage earners, who represent 68.6 per cent of the labour force. The trend in 2004 towards protests is also significant. The first half of the year witnessed 74 protests while in the second half of the year the number jumped to 191 incidents. Demands mainly concerned closings, layoffs, wages and overdue payments. Only 25 per cent of these were in the private sector, a result of the acceleration of the reform programme with the new government in place. The investment minister, Mahmoud Mohieddin, criticised the report for what he described as its exaggeration of the numbers to some extent while acknowledging that workers in all kinds of production units, private or public, are practising their legal right in protesting. "This coincides with many factors and not only the new government, mainly changes in the labour market," he said. But the state is not ready to give in easily. "We weigh demands and only respond to demands that we see as valid given that it comes through the unions. Some times we cannot accept workers' demands. A case of this kind is the recurrent sit-in at one of the factories to be privatised in Qalyubiya. The workers demand that they use the early retirement scheme and to be re-appointed on contract basis, an unacceptable demand which is not supported by the syndicate. In this particular case we agreed on one from three demands concerning the social insurance situation of the workers." Here, Mohieddin is referring to the Qalyubiya ESCO textile factory 450 workers who began their second strike on Sunday 13 February in protest at the privatisation of their company (see accompanying story). The workers' version of the story says that the strike came after five months of negotiations and unfulfilled promises by the company's management, the governor and the Ministry of Labour, which refused to look into their complaints. ESCO workers organised their first strike five months ago after an advertisement appeared announcing that the factory was for sale. Mohieddin also admitted the deficiencies in the early retirement scheme which were behind his decision to stop working with it. "It is a destructive scheme and the responsibility for it lies with the unions and experts. We are now preparing for an alternative scheme that comes in the context of an integrated employment policy. Fortunately, the unified labour law has already set the rules to guarantee workers' rights and the role of the union committees in every plant," he said. Although the protests are still defensive and scattered with the lack of independent trade union bodies (in many of the new industrial cities' factories, mainly private, there are no trade union committees at all), militant tactics have paid off for important groups of workers: Transport workers in Alexandria won a crucial victory last month. They had a problem with the late payment of their wages, so the workers organised a demonstration, which forced the management to agree to their demands. In another strike, workers at the Egyptian Fish Company were able to halt plans to privatise their factory. The workers occupied the factory and organised a demonstration in the street in front of the company headquarters. When the boss of the Egyptian Lighting Company fled abroad, leaving huge debts, "the workers occupied the factory, and have been running the company themselves for six months", said Mohieddin. Another stark example of this is the Torah cement workers sit-in, which came days before the final deadline of an offer by the giant multinational Cement Francais to buy the company. The workers demanding wage guarantees only ended their protest when the government decided to turn down the multinational's offer . A renewed offer, presented early this week, includes a commitment to the workers that it will not undertake any mass layoffs for at least three years. Also, Cement Francais promised the workers two bonuses over the period of six months if a successful deal is reached.
