Are the security forces becoming less tolerant of industrial action by workers, asks Karim El-Khashab Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch reported 11 separate incidents of industrial action in the last week of April alone, as workers seemed increasingly willing to go on strike in order to press for their demands. In the Nasr city district of Cairo, an estimated 3,000 bus drivers, ticket collectors and maintenance workers brought public transport to a halt as they prevented buses from leaving the depot. Central Security forces immediately surrounded the area where the strike was taking place, signalling their determination to bring a swift end to the situation. Workers allege that security personnel threatened to break up the protest forcibly if it did not end at once. Hassan Higazi, a maintenance worker at the depot, told Al-Ahram Weekly that he and his colleagues felt they could be detained at any moment once security forces arrived. Such a swift response on the part of the police suggests that the authorities are taking a harder line with protesters, at least when actions take place in the capital. Higazi believes memories of similar action taken by bus drivers in the late 1970s, which resulted in a nationwide strike, spurred the clampdown. He insists, though, that workers are not going to be intimidated by such heavy handed tactics. "We knew they would have to talk to us eventually despite their initial reaction," he said. Journalists were prevented from speaking to the striking employees, and reports of violence by the police and one arrest could not be confirmed. The transport workers' demands echo those of other workers. They complain that their salaries, which can be as low as LE350 a month, are inadequate to meet the most basic needs of their families. For years, they say, they have been asking their union representatives to press for pay rises that would at least offset the deterioration in their living standards caused by inflation, and that they have been consistently fobbed off. In a show of solidarity between drivers, ticket collectors and maintenance staff, the striking workers asked that supplementary food allowances, which currently range from LE20 to LE100 a month depending on job descriptions, be paid at a standard rate. They are also demanding better healthcare facilities at the Public Transportation Agency Hospital and that medical leave bonuses be returned to earlier levels. They also want allegations of widespread corruption to be investigated. "The way we are treated is appalling," says Higazi. "We get 2.5 per cent of every ticket sale, which is the equivalent of nothing, and then half of our salaries are deducted in fines and penalties. Management claims inflated salaries for us from the government and we don't know where the money is going." Salah Farag, head of the Transport Association, claims that if workers had come to him first their demands could have been dealt with without disturbing public order. The drivers, he said, got a very good deal which eventually ended the strike, including promises of increased bonuses to be paid from July, and an increase in the percentage on tickets paid to employees. The speed with which a settlement was reached, insists Farag, underlines the government's willingness to negotiate with workers despite what he describes as their unnecessary escalation of the situation. The strike followed an increasingly common pattern, with workers bypassing their official union representatives and speaking not with ministry officials or management, but to the security services. A security official, speaking to the Weekly on condition of anonymity, said that strikes and sit-ins were getting out of hand and that a firmer stance needed to be taken, especially against what he called "elements with ulterior motives" who were stirring unrest. "It's people like that and you [the media] that have blown this whole mess up," he said, blaming the spread of industrial action on the media coverage that workers' sit-ins and strikes have received. "We know the people who are starting these things up, and we have told them that we won't always be so lenient." Meanwhile, labour leaders who helped organise strikes in Mahala and elsewhere already complain of police intimidation. Others have been told to transfer from the factories in which they currently work, to new plants or else face the sack. The Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) was closed down two weeks ago in a move that was condemned by local and international civil society organisations. Yet the current spate of strikes shows no sign of ending, and is even spreading to sectors without union representation. On 28 April, 1,500 garbage collectors went on strike to demand the payment of back wages. They say that after garbage collection bills were incorporated onto domestic electricity bills they received only a fraction of their salaries. Having seen the success of industrial action in other sectors, say the garbage collectors, they too decided to take action to press for longstanding demands to be met. Mustafa Amin, head of the Transport Union, believes that much of the current unrest is a result of copycat action. "The situation in many sectors is dire," he says. "Coupled with a sense of insecurity on the job and encouraged by the government's response to many of the sit-ins, workers all over the country sense an opportunity to undo earlier injustices."
