Workers from Tanta Flax and Oils Company, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
Workers from Tanta Flax and Oils Company, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
A worker from Tanta Flax and Oils Company, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
A worker from Tanta Flax and Oils Company, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
Khaled Ali, labor lawyer and director of Egyptian Center for Social and Economic Rights, making his opening statement in court today. The Tanta Flax and Oils Company, were at the State Council in Dokki, Giza, demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
El-Sayyed Mohamed el-Refai, a 59 year old who has been working at Tanta Flax and Oils Company for 41 years. He lost his eye and fractured his skull in an industrial accident in the factory in 2007. He says the privatized company management refuses to compensate him or even pay for his treatment. The workers have been staging protests over the past five years demanding the return of the company to the public sector.
Gamal Osman, Democratic Workers Party member and one of the Tanta Flax and Oils Company protest leaders, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
A worker from Tanta Flax and Oils Company, attending a court session at the State Council in Dokki, Giza. Workers are demanding the re-nationalization of their privatized firm. The case has been adjourned to 4 July.
The current strike wave is not just about economic demands, but politics is also involved. The strike wave is also reshaping the consciousness of sections of the Egyptian working class.
You find a civil servant who was not involved politically, but suddenly joins a strike action over work conditions, and exhibits previously unknown (even to himself) organizing skills that elevates him to the strike leadership. Once the strike is suspended in victory, this civil servant together with his comrades goes ahead to build the country’s first independent trade union in half a century, and is taking an active role in political life, showing for all sorts of protests over democratic issues and helping spread the free union experience of the tax collectors to other workers in other sectors.
This is just one example. Another example could be seen above in the video, where workers from Tanta Flax, Amonsito and Mahalla denounce the Israeli deadly attack on the Gaza aid convoy. These workers started their fight over local grievances related their own specific factories over the past few years. But by time their consciousness have gone through transformation, helping some of them to look at the bigger picture, to start linking their factory grievances with the overall state policy, to start drawing parallels between the state’s policy towards them, with that of Israel vis a vis the Palestinians, and to start organizing, like in the video above, in support of the Palestinians while continuing fighting for their own specific demands…
I dislike it when someone tells me this strike wave is not political… This strike wave is changing the lives of those millions of workers taking part in it, and there lies the hope of changing the system…
Hisham el-Okal and Gamal Osman, Tanta Flax and Oils Company workers, attending the 2 May protest…
Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist from Cairo
hossam [at] arabawy [dot] org
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