By Faiza Rady The man once deemed too young to cause "trouble" is now at the forefront of the campaign to secure workers' rights "The Mahala Al-Kubra Misr Spinning and Weaving Company has been my home as long as I can remember," says , a labour activist and veteran skilled worker at the plant. A tall, soft spoken man in his late 50s, Habib is the uncontested leader of the group of five activists that organised the Misr workers' strike in December 2006 over unfulfilled pledges to increase bonuses. He also played a leading role in organising the protest against soaring food prices and bread shortages on 17 February, 2007 in which an estimated 10,000 Misr workers participated, many of them holding raghifs, Egyptian loaves of bread, in a symbolic gesture. "The Misr Company is the largest textile plant in Egypt, employing some 27,000 workers," says Mohamed El-Attar, a fellow labour leader and close friend of Habib's. "At 38, I'm the youngest comrade in the group, while Habib is the oldest at 59, but we have learned that in our work age doesn't matter. Regardless of age, experience or seniority, our decision-taking process is democratic, it is based on the principle of one person, one vote. If nothing else, our work as labour activists is profoundly egalitarian." Habib agrees. "Egypt is steeped in a tradition of autocracy which our group rejects. Autocracy is pervasive in the political system and beyond, it has even permeated the leadership of progressive political parties and NGOs and is rampant among many intellectuals. As workers we have suffered from the class system and its oppressive hierarchy throughout our lives. Our struggle is about establishing more equitable and egalitarian relations of production and management. Our group of five, which is an extension of a group of 30 activists in the plant, functions according to egalitarian principles. I cannot impose my decisions on my comrades. Even though I am the oldest and hold the most senior position in the plant this in no way qualifies me to run the show. It would be a contradiction in terms to struggle for democracy in Egypt while establishing autocratic relations within our group." "This is why I believe that workers are by definition socialists, even if they don't know about the ideology -- it is in their class interest to strive for equality and justice, a tenet of socialist thought." As a youth Habib learned about the job early. "My father started to work at the Misr plant in the early 1950s and I was hired in 1964 as an apprentice, when I was 16 years old," says Habib. "Two years later the company appointed me as a worker in production." Intelligent, with an inquisitive mind and an innate sense of being exploited at the plant in terms of wages and working conditions, Habib wanted to learn about his legal rights as a worker. "I read everything I could find about labour legislation and I passed it on to others; that's how I grew into a leadership position at a young age. It started as a process of self-education, then I learned to teach others." The first major industrial action, in which Habib was involved was in June 1975 when 40,000 workers were employed at the plant. The workers first occupied the local union headquarters and then staged a sit-in at the plant. They were protesting over government-decreed wage increments, a revised job classification scheme to eliminate the lowest paid levels and improved health conditions for civil servants that did not apply to industrial workers in public sector industries. "I was among the organisers. The sit-in was successful because in the end we did get parity with the civil servants but it was a hard struggle," Habib says. Security forces broke into the factory three days after the takeover, arresting 2,000 and killing as many as 50 workers. In retaliation the workers' families and other people from the town stormed the houses of managers and displayed their luxury possessions on the street, expressing their outrage at the widening income disparity between blue collar and white collar workers at the same plant. "The sit-in had major political repercussions, and Mamdouh Salem's government fell as a result," recalls Habib. But he and his comrades were arrested, charged with inciting the workers to strike and imprisoned for one month in Tanta jail. After their release the most senior activists were transferred to other plants in the region. One of the few who remained at the plant, Habib was deemed too young and insignificant to instigate further "trouble". After June 1975 the Mahala workers staged a number of strikes in the 1980s. In October 1985 the workers refused to accept their pay checks for three days because of declining wages. The protest resumed in February 1986 when 500 workers demonstrated in front of the union headquarters demanding monthly wages for 30 days work, as opposed to the 26-days the company paid. Management argued that Fridays weren't work days to be included in the payroll, while the union told the workers their demand was unfounded. Following massive demonstrations management caved in and conceded to the 30-day pay. Habib and other activists were arrested and imprisoned for 40 days. In August 1989 Misr workers struck in solidarity with the Helwan Iron and Steel plant strike over the minister of industry's illegal ousting of two leftists, Mohamed Mustafa and Abdel-Rahim Haridi, who had been elected as workers' representatives to the management council. "All these actions were important. It is only by struggling that we gained at least some of our rights. Nothing was handed to us on a silver plate. What was significant about 1975, for example, was that our demands for parity with civil servants weren't specific to the Misr plant alone, our action involved public sector workers nationwide. It was a collective action that had a domino effect, spreading to many other factories," says Habib. "Similarly, 1989 didn't concern our plant directly. It was an act of solidarity with the steel workers and their right to choose their representatives without government interference." "We are proud of Mahala. Its history has taught us a lot," adds El-Attar. "Mahala is unique in Egypt because it is predominantly a workers' town. In a city of 1.5 million the ratio of poor to rich is about 90:10. This contradiction contextualises our militancy and our struggles."
