CAIRO: Workers said that sector protests do not affect Egypt's economy and warned of a "workers revolution" to achieve social justice if conditions and livelihoods remain unchanged. At a conference of the Coordinating Committee for Workers' Rights and Freedoms, celebrating its 10th anniversary, attendees called for establishing more independent syndicates and continuing workers' protests to demand rights. "We want to affirm workers' freedoms, support the draft law prepared by the Ministry of Manpower on trade union organization and independent syndicates and demand major amendments to the Labor Law," said Talal Shokr, labor activist and one of the committee's coordinators. The conference entitled "Workers and Social Resistance" called for nationalizing companies that were sold to foreign investors and halting privatization. Attendees called for starting negotiations between workers and business owners with participation of the state to draw out a plan and timeframe for resolutions. "Workers are the weakest category in society and have been suffering since 1998 with the application of new economic policies. It is unfair to label their protests as sector protests," Shokr said. "Strikes do not affect the economy — it is business owners who halt production deliberately. However, problems will end once a scheduled plan to achieve workers' demands is laid out," he added. They demanded forcing multinational companies to abide by international standards regarding working conditions and wages as well as fostering independent trade unions. The committee, formed in 2001 in cooperation with the Hisham Mubarak Law Center and Alternative Development Studies Center to monitor the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) elections, accepts memberships from individual workers to prevent political affiliations by groups. "The most important task was to encourage workers to use strikes as their only weapon to achieve their demands," Shokr said. "We also wanted to create awareness about the importance of trade unions as the only true representative of workers and act as a strong voice against privatization," he added. The committee plans to create sub-committees in governorates and create an organizational structure to increase efficiency. Workers slammed the official ETUF and called for establishing more independent trade unions to represent them and protect their rights. "We demand freezing the ETUF and we have court rulings stating that its elections were forged. We believe in the right of any group of workers to establish independent trade unions," said Hassan Abdel Salam, one of the committee's coordinators. "We will leave it up to workers to decide who defends their interests," he added. Workers said that the labor movement in Egypt is "unpoliticized" and wide enough to include all political streams, adding that workers have not benefited from the revolution even though they were one of its initiators through protests over the past year.
