Workers at the Public Transportation, Notary and Postal Authorities have been on strike since last week. Doctors and pharmacists are scheduled to hold a partial strike in both public and private hospitals on 26 February and begin an open-ended strike on 8 March. State-owned textile factories have been closed owing to industrial action for several days now. This is the backdrop of industrial unrest against which the government of a Hazem Al-Beblawi's resigned on Monday. On Saturday Public Transportation Authority workers and drivers announced a full strike in support of their demands for a wage increase and to focus public attention on what they say is the appalling condition of the vehicles they drive. “We are forgotten,” bus driver Mamdouh Al-Sayed told Al-Ahram Weekly. “We are not demanding the impossible. All we are asking is to be treated on a par with Metro and Railway Authorities drivers. Cairo Public Transportation Authority (CPTA), affiliated to Cairo Governorate rather than the Ministry of Transport, employs 42,000 workers whose wages range from LE600 to LE1400. Those at the lower end of the pay scale are pressing for a minimum wage of LE1200. “The country is in the middle of a transitional period and is suffering from a financial crisis but we have been promised on several occasions that wages would be increased and nothing has happened. We have been waiting a very long time now for a basic living wage,” says Al-Sayed. Cairo's governor has responded to the workers' demands by offering a one-off bonus payment of LE200 for the next three months. The drivers rejected the deal, resuming their strike on Monday. According to CPTA all 28 garages in Greater Cairo are currently on strike and losses have reached LE1 million a day. “I would advise drivers to accept the deal. Continuing losses could easily impact liquidity, making it difficult to pay the LE200 bonus,” CPTA head Hisham Atteya told the Weekly. Despite the outgoing finance minister approving a LE15.2 million allocation to the CPTA on Monday the strike did not stop. Cairo Governorate subsequently deployed 1200 minibuses to alleviate commuters transport woes and there have been reports of army busses being deployed. “I urge Egyptian workers in general, and workers of the Transport Authority in particular, to work regardless of their sufferings. Now is not the right time to strike,” says Atteya. Earlier this month 20,000 employees at the Mahalla Textile Company downed tools demanding they too receive a LE1,200 minimum wage and to protest delays in the payment of the last instalment of their annual bonus which was due in December last year. The Mahalla workers decided to suspend their strike for 60 days after the government promised to meet their demands. The town's textile workers, whose industrial action served as a catalyst for the 2011 revolution, were among the first demonstrators to call for a national minimum wage in 2008. Since the 25th January revolution successive governments have promised to implement a policy of minimum and maximum wages only to backtrack. Most recently, in October 2013, the then Finance Minister Ahmed Galal announced that minimum and maximum wages would take effect in January 2014. Once again nothing happened. On Sunday Postal Authority workers began a nationwide strike demanding a complete restructuring of their payment systems. During a sit-in at the Authority's headquarters in Ataba protestors also requested the payment of the seven per cent bonus stipulated in the Labour Law. Employees at the Notary Authority, affiliated to the Justice Ministry, began an indefinite partial strike last week in support of their demands for parity with other Justice Ministry authorities. Striking workers have organised several protests in front of the Ministry of Justice after securing permission to do so from the Interior Ministry. While the Notary Authority strike remains partial employees warn of escalation should their demands remain unanswered. Outgoing Minister of Manpower Kamal Abu Aita has called on workers to negotiate their demands instead of taking strike action. Adjusting the minimum wage, he said, is not within the ministry's authority but under the jurisdiction of the National Council for Wages. Kamal Abbas, executive director of the Centre for Trade and Union Services, a pro-labour NGO, warns that government workers are striking now because they have run out of patience after seeing no results accrue from minimum wage legislation. “People on limited incomes continue to suffer and this is causing a growing amount of anger.” Doctors demanding an overhaul of the crumbling healthcare system as well as increased salaries decided to hold a partial strike in both public and private hospitals on 26 February, and begin an open-ended strike on 8 March. Together with pharmacists doctors began an open-ended strike in 2012 which lasted for 80 days. “Multiple and complex factors have led to the eruption of strikes,” economic expert Saad Hagras told the Weekly. “The first factor,” Hagras said, “is that these workers and employees have rights which have been neglected for decades.” “Another factor”, Hagras said “is the failure of successive governments to deal with workers' demands and to acquaint them with the real economic hardships the country is going through.” The only group of disgruntled strikers to so far have their demands met are junior police officers. Hundreds went on strike on 8 February across seven Egyptian governorates to protest pay and working conditions. The General Association of Low-ranking Police Officers had been demanding higher wages, compensation for risk, improved working conditions and an end to proposals that junior officers be assessed by the National Security Apparatus. Last week interim President Adli Masour ordered a 30 per cent pay rise for police officers starting in March. The Egyptian Centre for Human Rights has recorded 54 strikes and sit-ins since the beginning of the year. Workers, says labour activist Kamal Khalil, may be in the process of drawing up their own roadmap for Egypt, starting with social justice. “The increase in strikes sends a message to Egtpr's rulers - justice first, even before presidential and parliamentarian elections,” Khalil announced on his Facebook page. Former employees of Tanta Flax and Shebeen Weaving factories launched their own protest on Sunday and Monday close to the cabinet's headquarters to demand the implementation of an earlier court ruling declaring the privatisation of the two factories illegal. Demonstrators carried a coffin labelled “court rulings” during their protest. “This is a clear warning to the Egyptian government that it must work towards meeting the revolutionary demands of bread, freedom, and social justice,” said Sayed Zahran, one of the protestors. In December Hisham Kandil, prime minister under Mohamed Morsi, was sentenced to a year in jail for failing to execute an Administrative Court verdict ordering the re-nationalisation of the Tanta Flax Company. The company was privatised in 2005 when it was sold to Saudi investor Abdel-Ellah Al-Kaaki for less than its market value and hundreds of workers were made redundant.
