Sit-ins before the People's Assembly and the Cabinet Office have become a part of daily life, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky Mohamed Abdel-Tawab, an employee at the Ministry of Agriculture, spent the Sham Al-Nessim holiday together with his colleagues in front of the main gate of the People's Assembly. They weren't celebrating, but protesting. For over a week they have been "sitting in" to draw the attention of officials to their plight. Abdel-Tawab, who lives in Beheira governorate and has two children, is paid LE300 a month. It is, he says simply, not enough to feed his family. As more and more citizens take to the streets to voice their demands, usually for pay increases, access to housing, medical insurance and other basics, the number of protests is growing. In February alone Cairo saw 40 strikes and sit- ins, the majority in front of the Cabinet Office and parliament buildings. They included a protest staged by 50 families of the handicapped who were demanding the housing units and small shops they had been allocated but which had so far been withheld. Responding to the demands of Abdel-Tawab and his colleagues, People's Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour promised to speak with government officials and work out a solution to their problems within days. Meanwhile, the Administrative Court ruled last week that the government must increase the legal minimum wage, which has remained at LE35 a month since 1984. The ruling was followed by demonstrations led by hundreds of government employees and workers who protested outside the Cabinet offices demanding the figure be raised to LE1,200. The court based its ruling on a detailed study by researcher Ahmed El-Naggar outlining ways in which the government could finance the increase. In 2008 President Hosni Mubarak issued a decree ordering that the annual social bonus paid to government employees be raised by 30 per cent of the basic salary. The increase was quickly swallowed by soaring inflation. Labour activists hope the court decision will help unite workers as they press for their demands. "Most of the strikes that we see are over the same grievances. People need a salary that allows them to cover their basic needs," says Khaled Ali, director of the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR). And the tactic they choose to press their demands is simple. Sit-ins in front of parliament are intended to bring maximum embarrassment to the ruling NDP and its government. "Since the beginning of the year I have yet to see this street without sit-ins or demonstrations. People have the right to protest. They have to be paid enough to feed their children," one member of police guarding the Egyptian parliament told Al-Ahram Weekly. Workers, says Ali, are more organised now than at any time in the recent past. In the last three years, he argues, they have acquired the skills and experience to successfully press their demands. Workers' unions at most state owned companies now have leaders with excellent negotiating skills, capable of mobilising their colleagues and of attracting media attention. Since 2004 the government has sold or re-structured over 200 state companies, often failing, say its critics, to protect workers' rights in the process. Those same employees, argues Ali, are now, through organised protests and sit-ins, drawing attention to the flaws in the government's privatisation policy as well as sending a message to those who bought state companies that they are not above the law. Independent reports calculate that of the 800 strikes and sit-ins that took place in 2008, 609 involved workers from state owned companies. "The problem is that the government relies on state security to deal with these protests, which is wrong. This is a social and economic issue," says Ali. "Most workers' groups do not work together because they know it will lead to a security crackdown." In 2007 Gamal Mubarak, chairman of the NDP Policies Committee, described the increase in protests among workers as "a healthy phenomena".
