Vol. 75/No. 11      March 21, 2011

Working people are also pressing for wage increases, for permanent jobs for temporary workers, removal of corrupt managers at state-owned and private enterprises, and the right to form unions.

Scores of strikes and sit-ins and other protest actions continue. Rail, textile, and other factory workers, as well as hospital and university workers, farmers, the unemployed, students, and others are using the space won by the mass movement that deposed Mubarak.

The March 4 edition of Al Masry Al Youm reported on close to a dozen protests. Among the actions: women in Beni Suef demanding reduced apartment rents, students at Alexandria University calling for the resignation of the university president and deans, a sit-in by Misr Bank workers demanding the resignation of the bank board, fired Nasr Automotive workers fighting for higher pensions, village residents in Luxor Province protesting price hikes for cooking gas, and demands for housing by people living in tents.

About 1,000 workers at Cairo Pharmaceuticals and Chemical Industries held a sit-in March 1. According to Al Masry Al Youm, “they wanted permanent contracts and higher bonuses.” Three hundred workers from Samuel Tex, a linens manufacturer, announced a strike for higher pay, fixed working hours, and guaranteed days off.

The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), the only legal union organization in the country, is still controlled by members of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party. “Stop these protests,” demanded the federation’s secretary general Ibrahim El-Azhari. “Most of the protests are asking for wage increases or the removal of chairmen and so on. This is a kind of extremism.”

The Egyptian Federation of Independent Unions, which promotes unions independent of the government-dominated federation and has won support, including among government and textile workers, held a conference March 2. “There are some 5,000 factories in the Tenth of Ramadan City [northeast of Cairo], yet only 13 of these have unions,” one delegate told the conference.

Other union militants are pushing their demands inside the ETUF. Karim Reda, a fired Petrotrade Company worker participating in a demonstration of 2,000 outside the government oil ministry February 23, told the press, “Most of these protesting employees want to establish a trade union of any sort, whether independent or within the ETUF structure.”  
 
Military tries to placate protests
Ongoing protests against government officials appointed by Mubarak and against antidemocratic laws have forced the military regime to make some concessions.

Egypt’s Supreme Military Council named Essam Sharaf as prime minister March 3, replacing Ahmed Shafiq, who had been appointed by Mubarak shortly before he was forced to resign. According to the Wall Street Journal, the appointment of Sharaf “marks a bid by Egypt’s interim military rulers to placate protesters who have sustained demands for sweeping governmental changes in the wake of Mr. Mubarak’s exit.”

Sharaf is an engineering professor who served in Mubarak’s cabinet as minister of transport from 2004 until he resigned in 2006, apparently to distance himself from corruption in the department. He joined an anti-Mubarak demonstration at the university a week before the president’s ouster although he was still a member of Mubarak’s party.

The day after his appointment, Sharaf was a featured speaker at a demonstration in Tahrir Square called to celebrate Shafiq’s removal. The action demanded the dissolution of both the National Democratic Party and the hated State Security Agency, as well as the release of political prisoners. Sharaf told demonstrators to be patient.

Sharaf also announced he was naming a new cabinet, replacing most of Mubarak’s appointees, including Interior Minister Habib el-Adly, widely seen as responsible for organizing attacks against anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square. El-Adly was arrested February 17 on charges of corruption. Gen. Mansour el-Essawy has been appointed as the new interior minister.

The minister of military production, Sayed Meshaal, remains in place, however. The military is one of the largest employers in Egypt with tens of thousands of workers in both military and civilian production.

While the Egyptian rulers have freed some political prisoners, thousands are still being held, including some arrested since the start of the anti-Mubarak protests. Among those at the March 4 protest in Tahrir Square were supporters of Amr al-Beheiry, who was beaten by military police February 26 during a protest demanding Shafiq’s resignation.

Two days after his arrest, al-Beheiry was tried before a military court. “His trial took three minutes, with no lawyer and no witnesses, and he was sentenced to five years,” his brother Mohamed said.

Also on March 4 thousands marched in northern Sinai demanding the release of prisoners, many of whom are held without charge or remain incarcerated after finishing their sentences.
 
 
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