Property tax collectors are pushing for equal pay with tax workers employed by the Ministry of Finance, report Serene Assir and Esraa Sobhy Egypt's 55,000 property tax workers will stage a nationwide sit-in on 3 December, escalating industrial action that has been ongoing since September. They are demanding parity with tax workers on the Ministry of Finance's payroll, and have staged three sit-ins so far, the latest on 13 and 14 November at the headquarters of the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions (EFTU) in central Cairo. "Since September we have been going to work but don't work," property tax worker Kamal Abu Ayta told Al-Ahram Weekly. According to Al-Dostour 's labour correspondent Mustafa Bassiouni, property tax revenues have shrunk by 80 per cent since the action began. In 1974, the then minister of finance Abdel-Aziz Hegazi placed property taxation under local administration, removing workers from the ministry's payroll. The move was widely believed to be in response to property tax officers reporting that his mother had failed to pay her residential taxes. "It's discrimination. Though we are effectively employed by the ministry we are run from local tax directorates which treat us differently from how the ministry treats the rest of its tax workers," Ahmed El-Barrawi, who took part in last week's sit-in at the EFTU, told the Weekly. "I've been a property tax worker for 30 years and I make just LE500. I can barely afford to raise my four children." Strikers attending the Cairo sit-in said the main body of tax workers, whose salaries are paid directly out of the ministerial budget, earn between five and 10 times more a month than their co- workers in the property tax sector. "I chose a government job because of the stability if offered," says Mumtaz Fathi, who also attended the sit-in. "But how can LE300 a month provide my family with stability? Our exclusion from the ministry is nonsensical and we will continue to push for equality with our fellow tax workers. Do you think I would leave my home in Daqahliya to come and participate in the sit-in if the situation was not genuinely miserable?" Workers' bitterness towards their exclusion from the ministry payroll is exacerbated by the fact that the taxes they collect are returned to the ministry. "It doesn't make any sense that because our predecessors were doing their job properly and keeping a check on corruption we should end up paying the price," says Fathi. Negotiations have been ongoing since the launch of the strike. Labour Minister Aisha Abdel-Hadi has repeatedly pledged her solidarity with the workers, as has EFTU head Hussein Megawer, who has met the property tax workers' representatives several times. Megawer, unavailable for comment to the Weekly, has come under increasing pressure in recent months as workers have escalated industrial action in support of their demands across several sectors. Worker unrest is garnering attention at the highest levels. Speaking to the press on 5 November, during the National Democratic Party's Ninth Conference in Cairo, Gamal Mubarak, President Hosni Mubarak's son and NDP assistant secretary-general, told reporters that, "we are still facing challenges and problems though that doesn't mean we haven't secured successes... there needs to be equality in their distribution." But property tax workers during last week's EFTU sit-in are worried that the government is unsympathetic to their cause and that union representatives, including Megawer, are unwilling to push their claims. The EFTU head's strong links with the NDP-led government fatally compromise his position as an arbiter in the eyes of a majority of workers. "The union does not represent us," says property tax worker and striker Yasser Metwalli. "They are practically appointed by the government. That is why we have to take to independent action. If the EFTU was on our side a crisis such as this would be averted." Since summer, strikes over poor working conditions -- mainly pay -- have broken out across the country. In September, Al-Mahala's textile workers scored a notable victory when the government conceded to the demands of 15,000 striking workers. Property tax workers are the second group of government employees to take action. In June this year Al-Azhar school teachers went on strike to successfully press for improved working conditions. "There is no unified strategy in the wave of strikes we have been witnessing," believes Bassiouni. "Few striking workers would recognise they are part of a bigger movement. At the end of the day they are simply calling for their rights. What is undeniable, however, is that successful action in one sector leads to action in another in classic domino fashion. And until workers' conditions improve significantly we will see more industrial action being taken, not less."
