Egyptian Member of Parliament and Muslim Brotherhood member Saad al-Husseini talks with agitated workers on strike outside a small cotton ginning company in Al-Mahalla al-Kubra, Egypt, Aug. 4, 2009. They were protesting the private company's failure to give them regular raises and stock dividends they had been promised.
(2 of 2)
The strike weapon has been used by blue collar workers and urban professionals alike, often using social networking sites as organizing and publicity tools. And while many Egyptians remain apathetic about their ability to affect change through national elections — widely dismissed by local and international monitors as rigged to keep Mubarak's part in power — many have found in the strike weapon a means of making the government more responsive, particularly to demands for pay raises and the payment of previously promised bonuses and dividends.
"Corrupt general elections are a major phenomenon here. There are human rights violations and arrests for no reason . . . There are huge economic monopolies, and the country's land is distributed to relatives and friends of the men in power," says Husseini. "For all of these reasons, the [political] opposition and the strikes are growing." The Egyptian government has accused the Brotherhood of instigating the strike, but labor experts such as Stanford historian Joel Beinin say there's no evidence of that beyond the solidarity offered by some Brotherhood individuals, like Husseini, who hail from blue collar constituencies. Many of the Brotherhood's leaders are actually businessmen with no inclination to promote the development of a labor movement that could challenge their own interests.
"This is democracy," says Hamalawy. "This is people taking control of their lives and their livelihoods and their incomes, and they're just telling the powers that be that they cannot just keep on dictating this bad situation forever. I am sorry if journalists are only accustomed to democracy that is conducted in the parliament, which is a sham at the end of the day . . . What's happening in these industrial urban centers, that's the real politics."
Indeed, the rising tide of labor unrest has prompted some local politicians and activists to take note. Husseini says the government has sought opposition support for its policies of privatization of industry, "But we say that this is impossible. We want a big industrial sector owned by the country, so that it guarantees security for the country."
And the opposition's response is to tie the aspirations of striking workers to their political situation, by pointing out that their plight is based on their lack of democratic rights. A general strike that broke out in Mahalla in April 2008, which resulted in bloody clashes with the police, were part of a nationwide protest action against the regime. Although some optimistic activists say Mubarak's power is already cracking, it remains to be seen whether mass action in the workplace and outside will have any effect on shaping the post-Mubarak era.
"Hopefully the coming Egyptian uprising is going to bring about a radical regime. A regime that's committed to the demands of the people," says Hamalawy. "I think it's the people who at the end of the day are going to choose which scenario to go forward." Presumably, the security forces that have kept Mubarak, and before him Sadat and Nasser in power for more than a half century, have other ideas.