Property tax workers are increasingly optimistic that their strike will succeed, reports Serene Assir An estimated 9,000 property tax workers from across the country gathered in Cairo on Monday for their fourth protest in their campaign to secure parity with tax workers on the Ministry of Finance's payroll. They met before the cabinet office building. "We intend to stay until our demands are met" striker and veteran syndicalist Mervat Qassem Hilal told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We are committed to our position. It is just a question of time before things change for us now." The area occupied by the strikers was cordoned off by state security forces though access was not blocked, as has happened during other industrial actions. And the mood among strikers, many of whom had brought blankets and food in preparation for an extended stay, was upbeat on Monday night. Protesters feel positive that in the face of their determination and organisation the authorities will have no choice but to retreat from a policy of no- negotiation. "This time we have positioned ourselves before the Cabinet building, in an area where there are many government buildings and that is close to the heart of the city. We feel that our voice is finally being heard, and much more clearly than during our previous sit-ins," says Hilal. Egypt's 55,000 property tax workers are answerable to governorate-level directorates which determine their conditions rather than the Ministry of Finance. The classification has led to a growing differential in wages and conditions compared with tax workers in other sectors who can earn up to 10 times more than property tax workers. The latter were removed from the ministry's payroll in 1974, soon after property tax workers made public that the mother of the then minister of finance, Abdel-Aziz Hegazi, was failing to pay property tax. In September this year they embarked on a series of industrial actions, including an ongoing work to rule, in an attempt to be reinstated on the ministry's payroll. Protesters say their salaries, ranging from LE200 to LE500 a month, are insufficient to feed and clothe their families. The last sit-in, held on 14 November at the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU) headquarters in Cairo, attracted hundreds of workers from across the country. But negotiations with EFTU head Hussein Megawer led nowhere. "We prefer to take things into our own hands," said protester Mohamed Abdel-Hamid Shirbini, from Beheira governorate. "Union heads are handpicked by the government and do not represent us. Until our demands for parity are met we will not back down." Megawer was unavailable for comment when contacted by Al-Ahram Weekly. In a related development a law that would have belatedly legitimised the 1974 expulsion of property tax workers from the ministry, originally planned to be passed this month, has been indefinitely postponed. "This decision represents a victory for the property tax workers. It suggests that the government is listening, and that it is aware of the trouble such a law might cause," says Mustafa Bassiouni, a labour expert at the independent daily Al-Dostour. The property tax workers' ongoing action is part of a growing wave of industrial unrest. In September the government conceded the demands of 15,000 textile workers at Ghazl Al-Mahala. The property tax workers are the second group of government employees to strike, following Al-Azhar schoolteachers' successful action earlier this year. This week university teachers said they too were considering strike action as part of their campaign for higher salaries. "The demands of the property tax workers are simple and a result of their very real needs," says Bassiouni. "As such, and because their action has escalated rather than weakened over recent months, it will be difficult to silence them now. The authorities would be wrong to think that they will surrender this late in the day."
