CAIRO - This is a moment of victory for Salama el-Qadi and millions of other Egyptian farmers who had recently managed to establish their own independent union after years of under-representation and suffering. El-Qadi says Egypt's farmers were always marginalised although they produce food for the rest of Egypt and form an indispensable pillar for the economy of this populous country. “Although the farmers made up a large chunk of the population, they could not have unions to represent them and speak for their demands for years,” el-Qadi said. “Now that the union has finally came to existence, the farmers' voice can be heard to everybody, from the government itself to the rest of Egypt,” he told the Egyptian Mail in an interview. Called the Farmers' Union, the new grouping joins in a long list of newly established professional gatherings that have emerged immediately after the revolution that put an end to Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rule, reflecting a keen desire on the part of the nation's professionals to have their voice heard and their demands satisfied. Almost all professionals, including segments that have never thought to organise themselves into unions or sought political emancipation, have expressed a desire to found their own federations, giving hope to many marginalised professional and social strata, and worry to officials in established professional unions. Cyberspace activists have announced that they would have their own union. Other segments, including fishermen, engineers, real estate tax collectors, factory workers, street sellers, carters, truck drivers, and all other types of professionals who suffered marginalisation for years, but have decided to make their voices heard to everybody in post revolution Egypt, have announced similar plans. The farmers make up about 52 per cent of Egypt's 80 million population. They are represented in Parliament, but farmers say their representatives in Parliament rarely represent them, let alone solve their problems. El-Qadi says the new union will seek to mediate between the Government and the farmers, enlist the help of agricultural experts to improve farming produce, and usher in the necessary seeds for peasants. “The presence of a union like this one can increase productivity and bridge the food gap in our country,” el-Qadi said. But not all the unions that have emerged recently are about representation. Some of the new unions have come to existence to compensate for the inability of established unions to solve the problems of their own members. One of these unions is the new Federation for Independent Workers' Unions, which was recently launched by a group of labour activists with the aim of defending the rights of the nation's workers and solving their problems. More and more workers submit applications to the new union every day, saying that the new entity gives them hope for the presence of services they can not attain in the original workers union. “The traditional unions do not carry out their duty of defending the interests of the workers anywhere here,” said Kamal Abu Eita, a real estate tax collector and the founder of the new union for Real Estate Tax Collectors. “The new unions came to existence in order to give voice to voiceless workers and this is what our union will seek to do,” he told this newspaper in an interview. Despite all the hardships Abu Eita faced on the way of declaring the new federation, he says his union is determined to improve the living conditions of the nation's workers by negotiating their salaries with their employers, improving their work environment, and offering them real services. The new union will also set standards for the contracts of the workers in the factories, get guarantees that employers will not subject the workers to injustice, and offer services to the workers after retirement. “We are resolved to push production in all sites forward by giving care to the workers,” Abu Eita said. “There can be no sound industrial life without the presence of institutions that defend the workers and solve their problems,” he added.
