CAIRO: One year after the country's largest industrial site, Ghazl El Mahalla, was brought to a stand-still by one of the biggest strikes in decades, Mahmoud El Gebali, chairman of the Mahalla Company for Spinning and Weaving, has been removed from office. In addition to the chairman's ouster, the government has opened an investigation into corruption charges and dissolved the entire board of directors of the public sector firm. El Gebali's dismissal was part of the deal which ended a second strike in the delta town in September 2007, during which more than 25,000 workers walked off the job and erected a tent city inside the factory gates. While the government had promised to remove the factory's leadership and investigate allegations of financial wrong-doing, it was far from clear that they would follow through with that pledge. Workers in Mahalla say El Gebali's removal is a victory for their movement, which grew up in defiance of what they call corruption within the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) and aims to create an independent labor movement in Egypt. "The workers are very happy, this is a big victory for us, Mohamed El Attar, one of the leaders of the Mahalla movement, told Daily News Egypt. "But our demands haven t all been fulfilled yet, though. This is not over. Analysts say that the ETUF is effectively an arm of the state, and is controlled by members of the ruling National Democratic Party. Given the state's strong influence in the union, which was formed by late President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1956, the government is deeply opposed to the creation of an independent movement. El Gebali's firing was not the only good news for Mahalla workers this week. According to sources in the factory, the Ministry of Investment and the Central Auditing Organization will form a special committee to investigate fraud at the plant. The government also announced that it will pay workers 45 days of back pay on Dec. 2, and increase their monthly bonuses by 17 percent effective Dec. 1. Ghazl El Mahalla is considered by many to be the flagship of Egyptian public enterprise and a reliable bellwether of labor trends. In December 2006, workers in Mahalla organized a 27,000-person strike to demand higher wages and the payment of bonuses as well as to protest corruption at their plant and vote rigging in the 2006 ETUF elections. They accused the regime of disqualifying scores of candidates and appointing union representatives considered close to the state. Ghazl El Mahalla's ETUF representatives sided with the factory management in opposition to that strike, but after five days the government negotiated a settlement with the strikers that was widely seen as a victory for the El Mahalla movement. The December strike made El Mahalla an icon of the Egyptian labor movement and ignited a streak of wild cat strikes across the country, many of which ended in similarly favorable deals for the country's workers.
