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Egypt Reforms Seen To Fuel Injustice, Anger
By Andrew Lamont
TENTH OF RAMADAN CITY, Egypt, Feb. 13 (IslamOnline) – Workers here and in other Egyptian industrial parks say they eat their own shoes. Although there are no reports of any of them actually doing so, workers say the Arabic expression, "left to eat one's shoes", is an honest description of their circumstances in the face of economic restructuring and a rising business class.
Under the tutelage of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the government has closed or privatized countless factories. Thousands of jobs have been slashed and the wages of the remaining workforce cut.
Now, workers are bracing for new labor laws that, it is widely believed, will spell the end of such labor rights as they currently have, especially in the new industrial parks that have been heavily touted as symbols of the new, foreign-invested and privately-driven Egyptian economy.
One of these is the Tenth of Ramadan City, some 70 kilometers northeast of Cairo. This sprawl of factory complexes is the flagship for the government's economic reform efforts. Yet it also is known among activists and workers, in one popular phrase, as the "graveyard of labor rights."
"All the new industrial parks, including The Tenth of Ramdan, have seen an unprecedented decline of labor conditions," says Karam Saber, director of the Cairo-based Land Center, one of only two independent civil society groups that have taken up the labor rights cause.
"We have seen increasing violations of labor rights over the past two years as a direct result of the economic reform program. This is a disgrace for all Egyptians," he adds.
Workers on the ground say they are wary of the controversial new labor law, which they say will shake up employer-employee relationships in this former socialist country. Already, they say, stories of injustice, corruption, misery, and exploitation are on the increase.
One of the workers is Youssef Farahat, a 29-year old factory worker who spends four hours every day commuting from his hometown of Minya el-Kamah, in the Eastern province of Sharqiya to the industrial zone. Farahat starts his day at 5:00 a.m. and ends it at 7:00 p.m. for the equivalent of 80 dollars per month in wages.
"We have to wait for the bus every day to come pick us up," Farahat says. "In winter, it's very cold and sometimes there are not enough seats for us so we stand up all the way to the factory. Many think we are lucky that we at least have a company bus that can drive us back and forth from work. Others do not have such a luxury."
Farahat's 14-hour daily routine is often fraught with dangers. The road to work is overcrowded with cars, buses, and trucks. Accidents are a daily event.
"We read the Quran on the way for two reasons,'' he says. ''One is because we have the time on the bus. But more importantly it's because we pray that the bus will not overturn that day and if it does, we'd be dying with the holy book in our hand."
Farahat works for a private chemicals factory, one of dozens that have mushroomed under of economic liberalization. With the new employers, he says, have come new labor practices. For example, he says, most business owners force workers to sign letters of resignation before beginning employment so they can be fired at the employer's convenience.
"This is indeed a common practice in most of the new industrial cities that were set up under the government's so-called economic reform program," says Saber. "Businessmen here see one thing - increasing their profits. Keeping laborers' wages to a minimum is one factor they can control to widen their profit margin."
In addition to low wages and job insecurity, workers say, many must contend with prison-like workplaces surrounded by fences they must climb or jump in order to buy a cheap sandwich they can afford.
In shabby clothes they gather to recount passionately the experiences of co-workers who were injured on the job - some permanently - and who received neither compensation from the factory owners nor attention from government officials they see as more interested in placating business owners than enforcing labor regulations.
"We want health insurance," says Mostapha Ali, a bus driver of 23 years. "We want social insurance. We do not want to stop working but we want to feel human. If I get into an accident, I don't think my family will get a penny from the work owner."
To be sure, the problems are not limited to the private sector. At the country's biggest textile factory, the government-owned Misr Textiles in the Delta city of Mehala el-Kobra 120 kilometers north of Cairo, new workers start their six-days-a-week, eight-hours-a- day jobs at a wage rate of 65 cents per hour.
"We work on the country's most important export," says Kamal, a worker who joined the company two years ago and asked not to be identified by his last name, "and this is what we get."
According to the IMF, unemployment stands at 13 percent. In the official view, workers like Ali and Farahat are the lucky vanguard: those who do not have to wait for the private engines of the new economy to start generating jobs in large enough numbers to keep up with population growth. Many workers, officials note, would accept lower wages and worse work conditions than these men face.
Some workers say they agree. "I think it's a tough world these days," says Salah Nasser, a mechanic at al-Nassagoun al-Sharqeeyon carpet factory. "But at least I have a job. This is better than slacking around on street corners or watching football matches in coffee shops."
Activists, however, say this mentality fuels the problems and leads to worse conditions.
The Committee for the Defense of Labor Unions says in a statement the law would give "work owners a unilateral right to terminate a job contract, change job descriptions, cut salaries, (and) assign workers to other posts than those stated in the contract."
The list is significant because, according to Saber of the Land Center, bosses use pay cuts and transfers to remote areas to silence activists or facilitate summary termination on the grounds that they failed to obey instructions.
"Now a worker cannot cough in the presence of the work owner, without risking being fired," says Saber, of the Land Center. "He sure can fire the workers since the new law protects the employer, not the employee. Capitalism knows no rights for workers."
While businesses have been privatized, however, the workforce remains confined to state-approved labor unions that are barred from striking or bargaining collectively despite even though their stance on any given issue usually is openly government-oriented. Given their ties to the state, the unions often are seen as weakening their own cause.
In el-Mehala, workers confide privately that police hire workers to spy on fellow employees to pre-empt strike attempts. Many talk of visits by plainclothes officers, who interview workers and gather information.
As the noose around the Middle East's largest labor market appears to tighten, militancy also is increasing. There have been several recent reports of small-scale indoor protests by angry workers. Security forces quickly contained a number of the disturbances. IN some cases, factory administrators have made deals with restive workers.
"In 1997, we recorded 35 strikes and protests," says Saber. "Last year, we recorded 130. Not everybody is eating their shoes. There are some who are ready to stand up and fight."
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