A decision by Egypt's university teachers to stage a work stoppage next month over pay has met with some unexpected opposition, reports Mona El-Nahhas At a stormy meeting held last Friday at the headquarters of the Cairo University Teachers Staff Club in Cairo, around 1,000 of the country's academics announced that they would stage a work stoppage at all state-owned universities and scientific research centres next month. The call for the work stoppage was made after the minister of higher education and scientific research had made it clear that the salaries of academics would not be raised at this stage. Instead, the minister suggested increases to their income through a system of "conditional bonuses". Under this system, academics who supervised distinguished theses, or whose performance was deemed to be extraordinary by the ministry, would receive additional payments. However, this proposal was rejected by a large majority of the academics present at the meeting, part of the Fifth Conference of University Professors. They insisted instead that they would accept nothing less than a rise in their basic salaries and vowed to begin taking steps against the government, setting 23 March as the date for the threatened work stoppage. The academics' decision also came against the background of the government's recent demolition of two buildings used by the Cairo University Teachers Staff Club. Last Thursday, one day before the holding of the conference, officials from the district of Old Cairo demolished the buildings along the River Nile, alleging that they violated building codes. "This is a humiliation of academic dignity, and something which cannot be accepted," several university professors said during Friday's meeting. However, the call for the work stoppage was unexpectedly almost immediately opposed by the chairmen of the teachers clubs at several other universities, who suddenly abandoned their previous hardline stance in favour of a softer approach towards the government. "I am not in favour of taking such a step now," Adel Abdel-Gawad, chairman of the Cairo University Teachers Staff Club, told Al-Ahram Weekly, arguing that it would be better for academics to rebuild bridges with the ministry. Meghawri Diab, chairman of the Menoufiya University Teachers Staff Club, shared Abdel-Gawad's point of view. "I think the system of bonuses suggested by the ministry is a good start," he told the Weekly, praising efforts made by the government to improve academics' financial conditions. Diab also revealed his intention of calling another conference of university teachers, during which he would try to convince them to back off from their decision to stage a work stoppage. Abdel-Gawad and Diab both joined committees formed last month by Minister of Higher Education Hani Hilal to discuss the academics' demands. These committees were given the brief of holding talks with the academics' representatives, listening to their proposals and producing a report that would propose ways of raising academic salaries. Abdel-Gawad and Hilal were among those academics who pronounced themselves in favour of the system of conditional bonuses proposed by the ministry as the only way of increasing the incomes of university teaching staff. However, due to their stances, both Abdel-Gawad and Diab have been accused by other academics of betraying their profession. Nevertheless, with the chairmen of teachers clubs refusing to join their colleagues in calling for a work stoppage, it is uncertain whether the stoppage can now take place. Last Friday's conference set up a 30-member coordination committee to organise the work stoppage planned for March, but with another camp of academics working for an opposite outcome this committee's work may be a difficult one.
