Workers in Egypt have played a decisive and under-reported role in helping topple Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. Union members in textile plants, post offices, sanitation services and the Suez Canal organized job actions across the country on February 9th – days before Mubarak announced his resignation. Journalists at the nation’s most influential newspaper, Al Ahram, combined demands for better wages with insistence on more political independence.
Five thousand unemployed youths stormed a government building in Aswan, 6,000 Suez Canal workers held a job action and 2,000 pharmaceutical workers in Quesna went on strike. One trade union official said, “most strikers say that the resources of the country have been stolen by the regime.” Strikes and other job actions have increased dramatically since the year 2000 when the International Monetary Fund, corporations, and U.S. government officials pushed Egypt to adopt “neo-liberal” economic agenda based on “free market” policies that raised unemployed and lowered living standards for most workers while favoring the wealthiest Egyptians. For more information about the Egypt’s labor movement, see the excellent port: Justice for All – The Struggle for Workers Rights in Egypt, A Solidarity Center report authored by Joel Beinin. www.solidaritycenter.org/files/pubs_egypt_wr.pdf