Egypt: 1,736 social, economic & labor protests in 2016

Mada Masr
1,736 social, economic and labor protests across Egypt in 2016: ECESR

Monday December 26, 2016

According to a report published by the independent Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) on Monday, a total of 1,736 protests took place in Egypt over the course of  2016. This figure represents a decrease in the number of protests that the ECESR reported in 2015, when a total of 1,955 protests took place nationwide.

The ECESR report outlines that in 2016 the state’s new austerity measures, tax hikes and associated economic policies contributed to increased pressures and hardships on Egyptians, pushing many citizens to protest. However, the continued imposition of restrictive legislation regulating the right to demonstrate – along with security crackdowns on dissent – have likely contributed to a decrease in the total number of protests this year.

According to the ECESR acts of protest can be divided into three distinct categories: social, economic and labor protests. Based on this breakdown, the ECESR reported that the majority of protests which took place this year can be categorized as labor protests, numbering 726.

The second highest category was social protests, with 633 taking place across the country. The report also states hat 377 economic protests took place nationwide.

LABOR PROTESTS

February saw the largest number of recorded labor and workplace protests, with 108 taking place.

Government employees carried out the greatest number of labor actions throughout the year, engaging in 478 acts of protest, followed by the public then the private sector, which witnessed 133 and 107 protests, respectively.

According to the ECESR report, the high number of protests among government workers and employees was largely triggered by the passing of the controversial Civil Service Law, a revised version of which was approved this year. The law and imposes a caps on wages and bonuses.

Employees from the Health Ministry were at the forefront of labor protests in the governmental sector this year, engaging in 159 demonstrations. This was followed by the Education Ministry’s employees who took part in 74 protests.

Looking at the specific grievances, the greatest number of industrial actions (379) were in protest against working conditions. This was followed by protests over demands for financial compensation, amounting to 368, followed by 367 protests over claims of corruption and financial irregularities. 

Protests over demands for employment amounted to 153, while 139 protests took place over disputes pertaining to contractual agreements.

Cairo was the governorate that accounted for the largest number of labor protests in 2016, with 454 industrial actions taking place, followed by Sharqiya with 128, and Gharbiya with 119 labor protests.

SOCIAL PROTESTS

According to the ECESR, the category of social protests are those which are not based on, or motivated by, economic factors. Accordingly ‘social protests’ include actions organized by members of residential communities, students, and others.

Of the 633 social protests witnessed across Egypt this year, the majority took place in September – with 86 recorded that month.

The main motivating factors behind social protests this year were corruption and negligence, with citizens organizing 366 such protests. Education-related protests followed, with 218 taking place this year, as well as 77 protests organized over security-related demands.

ECONOMIC PROTESTS

Out of the 377 economic protests recorded this year, May saw the highest incidence with 59 taking place.

According to the ECESR, economic protests are those triggered primarily by the government’s monetary and fiscal policies, which directly impact the economic interests of different categories of people, particularly small business owners.

Within all three categories, the most common form of dissent this year was the protest rally, which included protests and marches, reaching a total of 1,210. This was followed by labor strikes or work stoppages, of which 282 incidents were reported, followed by 134 sit-ins or sleep-ins. Finally the ECESR reported  84 incidents where participants inflicted self harm, including suicides and attempted suicides.

Local residents were the demographic which carried out the highest number of protests this year (457.)

Manual workers and laborers partook in 359 industrial actions, civil servants participated in 167 protests, students in 160, transport workers and drivers were involved in 132, teachers participated in 75, doctors in 67, nurses in 71, shopkeepers in 41 while the unemployed and graduates were collectively involved in 62 protests.

The ECESR’s monthly and annual protest figures are based on information published on news websites and portals. They have been issuing periodic and annual reports on protests in Egypt since 2012.

The latest report covers the period from January 1 until December 20. The ECESR will follow up this publication with a more detailed annual report on 2016 protests in February 2017.

*Photo of Public Transport Authority workers by Jano Charbel

Labor protests on the rise, bus drivers remain jailed for attempting to strike

Mada Masr
Agriculture Ministry workers, postgraduates demand employment & transport strike organizers remain jailed

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Jano Charbel

Egyptians from various labor sectors across Egypt have mobilized in the past few days to pursue improvements in labor conditions and gainful employment in accord with previous government decrees.

Protests have been organized by tree planters outside the Agriculture Ministry in Giza, while demonstrations by postgraduates demanding employment opportunities have been held outside the Cabinet’s headquarters in Cairo.

This while authorities continue to jail six Cairo Public Transport Authority workers - in undisclosed locations - who had planned a strike which was forcefully aborted by police units.

 

TREE PLANTERS

Dozens of tree planters who had been hired by the Agriculture Ministry on temporary contracts protested outside the ministry’s headquarters in the Dokki district of Giza on Tuesday, demanding full-time contracted employment and livable monthly wages.

Camelia Saeed, a tree planter from the Gharbiya Governorate who traveled by bus to Giza with her coworkers, told Mada Masr that she and the other protesters are only paid LE 40 per month, just over $US 4.

“That is all we get paid per month. That is our total wage. There are no bonuses. Some of us have been employed on part-time contracts for over a decade with the ministry, with this same monthly wage,” Saeed said.

The Agriculture Ministry employs around 2,000 tree-planters on temporary contracts in at least six different governorates. Over the past few years, many of these precarious laborers have been promised full-time contracts and a monthly wage of LE 500, which is still less than half the national minimum wage of LE 1,200 per month.

With her current salary, Saeed is unable to pay for her basic needs. “I am 50 years old, but my family still has to support me. I cannot provide for myself, even with LE 500 per month, let alone LE 40, which is a joke," she said.

Similar protests occurred in March, with temporary laborers calling for many of the same demands. According to Saeed however, the history of the labor struggle has a longer trajectory that has been met with continued intransigence.

“This is not the first time we’ve protested outside the ministry to demand full-time contracts and realistic wages and bonuses. I have protested several times outside the ministry’s gates over the past three years, to no avail,” she said.

“Like the host of ministers who have come and gone over the years, since the 2011 revolution, [Agriculture Minister] Essam Fayed doesn’t do anything about our demands. It’s like playing the same old broken record, where they promise to grant us full-time contracts and yet do nothing about it.”


Photos and videos documenting Tuesday’s protest show dozens of temporary laborers sitting on the road outside the ministry, with some partially blocking traffic around the building.

Ministry officials and delegates representing groups of tree planters from different governorates reportedly were in negotiations until late Tuesday evening. However, the results have yet to be announced.

 

POSTGRADUATE PROTESTERS

 

Between 200 and 300 postgraduates from across Egypt descended upon the Cabinet’s headquarters in downtown Cairo on Tuesday to protest for employment opportunities with the state.

The gathered protesters chanted and carried signs with slogans such as, “Postgraduates are unemployed and on the sidewalk,” “Egypt’s postgraduates are jobless” and “Employ us!”

The protesters were demanding that the Egyptian state uphold a 2002 Cabinet decree that allocated administrative posts in the government to public university postgraduates. Thousands of postgraduates have demonstrated to enforce the decree since it was issued, subsequently succeeding in landing government jobs but not  guaranteeing employment for future graduating classes.

Mahmoud Abu Zeid, 25, participated in Tuesday’s protest outside the Cabinet. Afterward, he told Mada Masr that the protesters “want to land jobs in the state’s administrative authorities. We want to help the state with our skills, qualifications and expertise, wherever our field of expertise is required.”

Abu Zeid is a Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate resident and was awarded a Master’s degree in law in 2015. Exasperated, he questioned why postgraduates must protest every year to ensure the state upholds its own decree regarding employment.

Delegates representing postgraduates met with the assistant to the Prime Minister Sherif Ismail’s chief of staff, according to Abu Zeid.

“We were told that our demands are being examined, and that we are listed to be employed. As for where or when we will actually be employed? We have not yet been informed,” he said.

The young unemployed lawyer said he had been arrested while on his way to a rally outside the Cabinet’s headquarters in November 2015, subsequently being held in detention for four days in the Qasr al-Nil Police Station. Three other postgraduate protesters were arrested the following month, similarly demanding government employment.

“However, we’ve had no trouble from police forces today” Abu Zeid said, expressing a sense of relief.

CONTINUED DETENTION OF SIX PUBLIC TRANSPORT STRIKE LEADERS

Sixteen political parties and rights groups signed and jointly issued a statement on Tuesday, demanding the release of six Cairo Public Transport Authority (PTA) bus drivers and workers, whom police arrested from their homes on Friday, a day before a planned strike.

The six workers were the principal organizers of a Saturday PTA strike that would have coincided with the first day of the new academic year.

However, the planned PTA strike was reportedly obstructed, according to several local media outlets, by the arrest of the six strike leaders and the noticeable presence of police forces and officers who had been deployed to the PTA’s many garages across Cairo and who pressured workers not to strike.

On Sunday, the independent Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS) announced that it had filed a complaint with the office of the general prosecutor, demanding that authorities disclose the whereabouts of the six jailed PTA workers and inquiring into the charges being leveled against the labor organizers.

The CTUWS is also calling on the Interior Ministry and the state-appointed National Council for Human Rights to identify the police station or detention center where the six PTA workers are being held.

Hundreds of Cairo’s PTA workers have been threatening to strike to further their demands that include that the PTA be under the auspices of the Transport Ministry rather than local governorates, increases in production bonuses by up to 17 percent of current rates and wage parity with Alexandria’s Public Transport Authority.

The public transport sector has witnessed repeated strikes over the last five years around the same demands, leading to continual negotiations between striking workers and the Transport Authority. 

*Archived photos courtesy of Vetogate & Al Arabya News, Video courtesy of Masr Al Arabia

Labor Day 2016: Sisi addresses nation from luxury hotel, as industrial actions increase nationwide

Mada Masr
Labor Day 2016: Sisi addresses nation from hotel, workers air grievances

Sunday, May 1, 2016 - 13:57

Jano Charbel

 

Over the past three years parades and street rallies for Labor Day have not been permitted in Egypt, and this year too the events have been subdued and held indoors.

An official state celebration was held on April 28 in eastern Cairo, at the Armed Forces’ luxury Al-Masah Hotel, and a smaller commemoration by independent labor organizations is scheduled for the evening of May 1 at the Journalists’ Syndicate in downtown Cairo.

At Al-Masah Hotel, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi delivered his first televised Labor Day speech to the nation, surrounded by ministers, top generals and leading members of the state-run Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF.)

Last year, Sisi broke with a decades-long presidential tradition of addressing the nation on Labor Day. He commemorated Labor Day at the Police Academy in New Cairo with a select group of workers in lieu of a televised address.

This year, Labor Day comes amid a backdrop of new austerity measures, increased costs of living, faltering industries, a devastated tourism sector, unemployment growing to (officially) nearly 13 percent, and increasing countrywide labor unrest with hundreds of industrial protests and strikes.
Independent trade unions continue to decline and a concerted crackdown on them persists.

Many independent unionists and workers’ rights activists have expressed pessimism regarding the future of Egypt’s labor movement, but Sisi sounded optimistic about how labor relations will develop during his rule.

 
Delivered from a stage covered with the ETUF logo, Sisi’s scripted speech praised Egypt’s workforce of over 28.4 million with patriotic rhetoric and called on workers to “double your efforts.”
“Increased production means increased incomes,” he said.

Like former President Hosni Mubarak in his Labor Day speeches, Sisi emphasized the state’s concern for low-income earners. He did not discuss the austerity measures introduced in 2014, which are said to have impacted millions of low-income families.

“I kindly ask him to actually visit factories and other workplaces, in order to come into contact with real workers and hear their grievances," Kamal al-Fayoumi, a worker leader from the public-sector Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla, tells Mada Masr of Sisi's speech. "Otherwise he just hears the applause and empty talk of ETUF representatives, which does not reflect the reality of our situation.”

Fayoumi spells out his Labor Day aspirations and concerns: “We want wages to increase in line with prices. Our utility bills are increasing exponentially, prices of basic consumer goods are sky-rocketing, while wages stagnate. Real wages are declining, and this will likely contribute to more labor unrest across Egypt.”

Not all workers in public-sector enterprises, let alone private sector workers, are eligible for so-called monthly minimum wage of LE1200 (currently equivalent to $US135), which was introduced in 2014.

Sisi’s speech warned against labor protests, stressing “the importance of promoting dialogue and collective bargaining between both sides of the productive process, to realize amicable resolutions, and to decrease labor protests, which negatively affect production.”

“Who’s going to represent me in this collective bargaining?” asks Seoud Omar, a Suez Canal Authority employee and labor organizer in Suez City. “How are workers supposed to confront exploitation, corruption, mismanagement and poor working conditions when ETUF has failed to over several decades?”

Omar says the ETUF has a membership of nearly 4 million — less than 15 percent of the national workforce — and thus is only capable of bargaining on behalf of a minority of workers. Egypt’s independent trade unions claim a membership of only a few hundred thousand, and have even weaker bargaining powers.

“The ETUF leadership seeks to outlaw independent unions under the pretext that they instigate labor protests and strikes,” points out Omar.

In 2015, 1,117 strikes and other industrial actions were reported across Egypt, according to Egyptian NGO Democracy Meter — an average of three labor protests for each day of the year. As for 2016, it says that, “Between January and April of this year there have been a total of 493 labor protests (including strikes, marches, rallies, occupations, etc.)

This currently represents an average of six industrial actions each day, and a 25 percent increase in such labor unrest in comparison to the same period last year.”

Most of these actions (144) took place in Greater Cairo, followed by the Nile Delta governorates (110), the Suez Canal governorates (63) and Alexandria (60.) Upper Egypt and other governorates witnessed the rest.

These industrial actions affect both unionized and non-unionized workplaces, and include independent unionists and ETUF members alike – although ETUF has officially authorized only two strikes since its establishment in 1957.

“ETUF ignores the national Constitution of 2014 regarding the right to strike (Article 15) and freely establish unions (Article 76),” Omar says, “Just as they ignore international workers’ rights conventions that Egypt ratified decades ago, including the International Labor Organization’s conventions.”

A lawsuit ETUF filed before the Administrative Court demanding the dissolution of independent unions and federations commenced in February and its verdict is scheduled for June 26.

A recently issued ILO statement expressed “concern over threats to human and trade union rights in Egypt” under Sisi. It also cited “the responsibility of the government to ensure the application of international labor conventions on freedom of association that it has freely ratified.”

Egypt has ratified ILO conventions on freedom of association (Convention 87) and the right to organize (Convention 98) since the 1950s, but has not upheld their provisions.

According to domestic trade union legislation, ETUF has been Egypt’s only legally-recognized labor federation since its establishment nearly 60 years ago. It maintained its monopoly until the 2011 uprising against Mubarak, when independent trade union federations emerged to challenge it.

In his Labor Day address, Sisi said the new parliament “will formulate the legislation needed to create an encouraging atmosphere for the process of production, by discussing and issuing the relevant laws, at the forefront of which are the (new) Labor Law and Trade Union Law.”

In an interview posted on ETUF’s website on April 28, newly-appointed Manpower Minister Mohamed Saafan — a leading ETUF member — says his ministry “is adding its finishing touches to the draft laws on labor and trade unions.”

The ministry’s draft laws are to be sent to parliament for review, specifically to the parliamentary Manpower Committee, which is presided over by ETUF chief Gebali al-Maraghi and other members of the state-run federation.

Building on the April ILO statement on Egypt, on April 30 Human Rights Watch called on Egypt to "unshackle workers' right to organize," saying the draft Trade Union Law being prepared should guarantee unions’ independence.

In an interview with the state-owned Al-Akhbar newspaper on May 1, Saafan argues that “there is no such thing as independent unions, only parallel organizations. Each one of these organizations has specific objectives, and the last of their concerns are labor rights.”

“Little by little the truth behind this regime’s policies are being exposed,” says Omar, “and workers are realizing that the government and ETUF have no real intention of negotiating with other labor groupings — be they independent unions, federations or independent-minded workers. The regime wants to listen only to its yes-men. It is siding with its own interests and protecting its own privileges.”

As for the May 1 event scheduled to take place at the Journalists’ Syndicate, dubbed “United for Union Freedoms,” it aims to address the grievances of independent unions and discuss their proposed amendments to the extant trade union and labor laws.

“These new laws are unlikely to add any provisions protecting labor rights or freedoms,” says Talal Shokr, an organizer of this event and member of the Independent Pensioners’ Union. “They are likely to maintain the status quo of unbalanced labor relations which existed under Mubarak. Perhaps they will serve to tilt them even further in favor of investors’ interests.”

Concluding his Labor Day speech, Sisi announced he is pledging LE100 million from the publicly-financed Tahya Masr (Long Live Egypt) fund to the Ministry of Manpower’s emergency funds for stalled and faltering industries — particularly the tourism industry. Tourism has been badly affected since the fatal downing of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai in late October, in what is widely believed to be a terrorist act.


*Screenshots courtesy of ONTV

Saud-led war against Yemen results in 6,200+ fatalities, 2.3 million displaced

The Guardian
Saudi Arabia campaign leaves 80% of Yemen population needing aid

Peace talks give Saudis way out as conflict fails to combat terrorism and puts an already impoverished country on the brink

Friday, 25 March 2016


Simon Tisdall

It is difficult to view Saudi Arabia’s relentless war of attrition in Yemen as anything other than a destructive failure. The military intervention that began one year ago has killed an estimated 6,400 people, half of them civilians, injured 30,000 more and displaced 2.5 million, according to the UN. Eighty per cent of the population, about 20 million people, are now in need of some form of aid.

The Saudis’ principal aim – to restore Yemen’s deposed president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi – has not been achieved. If they hoped to contain spreading Iranian regional influence, that has not worked, either. If the US-backed coalition’s campaign was intended to combat terrorism, that too has flopped. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), in particular, and Islamic State (Isis) have profited from the continuing unrest.

The conflict pits Aden-based Hadi government forces and their Sunni Arab allies against Houthi Shia militias, backed by Tehran, who control the capital, Sana’a, and much of central and northern Yemen. Already one of the world’s poorest countries before fighting escalated last year, Yemen now faces widespread famine. Food shortages are being exacerbated by a growing bank and credit crisis, Oxfam warned this week.

 
“The destruction of farms and markets, a de facto blockade on commercial imports, and a long-running fuel crisis have caused a drop in agricultural production, a scarcity of supplies and exorbitant food prices,” Oxfam said. Sajjad Mohamed Sajid, Oxfam’s country director, said: “A brutal conflict on top of an existing crisis ... has created one of the biggest humanitarian emergencies in the world today – yet most people are unaware of it. Close to 14.4 million people are hungry and the majority will not be able to withstand the rising prices.”

The UN’s 2016 appeal for donor cash has largely fallen on deaf ears. Belatedly responding to international criticism, including pressure for UK and EU arms embargoes, the Saudi government has agreed to scale back military operations pending renewed peace talks. The announcement followed a horrific airstrike on a market in Houthi-controlled Hajja province on 15 March that killed 119 people, including many children.

The UN’s human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, pointed the finger directly at Riyadh. “Looking at the figures, it would seem that the coalition is responsible for twice as many civilian casualties as all other forces put together, virtually all as a result of airstrikes,” he said. Markets, hospitals, clinics, schools, factories, wedding parties, and hundreds of private residences had been hit, Zeid said.

The Saudis’ agreement to re-enter UN-mediated peace talks in Kuwait following a proposed 10 April ceasefire looks like an admission that continued military attrition is no solution and is making matters worse. The Houthis are far from defeated, while Iran recently signalled willingness to step up direct involvement, as in Syria.

Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, the army’s deputy chief of staff, suggested Iran could deploy military advisers. “The Islamic Republic … feels its duty to help the people of Yemen in any way it can and to any level necessary,” he said.

Saudi Arabia has paid a high political and diplomatic price for its Yemeni misadventure, with scant return so far. Its actions have turned the spotlight on its lamentable human rights record, notably its recent execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a leading Shia cleric. The Yemen bloodshed has alienated western public opinion and European politicians fearful of another Middle East refugee emergency and associated Islamist radicalisation.

Despite the Saudi-led intervention, al-Qaida, in particular, retains a strong and expanding foothold in southern Yemen and uses it as a recruiting and training base. Washington is quietly carrying out its own campaign there behind the Saudi smokescreen. At least 40 AQAP militants were killed in a US drone strike this week.

Saudi failure in Yemen follows strategic reverses in Syria, where Russia’s autumn intervention reinforced Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president and Riyadh’s sworn foe. Bold plans by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the impulsive Saudi defence minister, to send troops to support Syria’s Sunni rebels have come to nothing, while Saudi involvement in the US-led air campaign against Isis has been minimal.

Iranian leaders, meanwhile, appear ever more confident as they entrench their influence and interests in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula. Their buoyant mood can be attributed in part to last year’s landmark nuclear deal with Washington and the subsequent lifting of western sanctions. The Saudis were appalled. But the US overrode their objections.

Speaking recently, Barack Obama was woundingly candid about US-Saudi differences over Syria and Iran. He spoke of America’s Saudi alliance with barely disguised distaste. And he offered some unpalatable advice to his “friends” in Riyadh.

“The competition between the Saudis and the Iranians – which has helped to feed proxy wars and chaos in Syria and Iraq and Yemen – requires us to say to our friends as well as to the Iranians that they need to find an effective way to share the neighbourhood,” Obama said.

Sectarian rivalries were not in the US interest. And the Saudis, he suggested, could no longer count on preferential treatment.


*Photos courtesy of AFP and Getty Images 

** Related article:

Tens of thousands of Yemenis mark a year of war, denounce Saudi-led offensive - Reuters

***

Egypt: Labor Unrest from North to South

Mada Masr
Labor unrest from north to south

As 2015 draws to a close, worker protests are building momentum across the country

Saturday, December 19, 2015 

 

Jano Charbel

 

 

Thousands of workers across the country are protesting against what they call unjust employment practices, and an associated spate of industrial actions has picked up steam in recent weeks.

Protests have been concentrated at the Suez Canal Authority, at hotels and resorts in the Red Sea town of Sharm el-Sheikh, the Shebin al-Kom Textiles Company in Monufiya, across several governorates in the branches of the state-owned Petrotrade Company, and a fertilizer company in the Upper Egyptian City of Assiut.

In Suez, 2,000 workers employed by companies affiliated with the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) have been holding sit-in protests and partial strikes for close to two weeks.

Labor protests have been ongoing since December 8 at six out of the seven subsidiary companies that are administratively — but not financially — managed by the SCA. These subsidiary maritime companies offer the SCA services including maintenance, transport, roping and docking.

Workers have staged partial strikes and sit-ins to protest low wages and insufficient bonuses, demanding parity with employees directly employed by the SCA.

“There are clear discrepancies between working conditions and incomes at the SCA and those of the seven affiliated companies,” argues Seoud Omar, a fulltime SCA employee living in Suez City. “There are even discrepancies among these seven companies — some generate profits, while others incur losses. This translates into several different pay-scales for employees along the Suez Canal.”

Omar says he stands in solidarity with workers protesting in Suez and the rest of the nation, but “parity remains a difficult goal to realize for all these workers in these different companies.”

SCA officials are currently in negotiations with the strikers and protesting workers in the hopes of reaching a settlement. Trade union organizer Galal al-Gizawy, who works for the Canal Port Company in Ismailia City, hopes the negotiations will take into consideration the concerns and demands of the subsidiary company employees, such as a unified pay-scale.

“We are seeking to suspend the strikes and protests,” he explains, "but we are also demanding complete parity with our fellow employees at the SCA.”

Senior employees at the subsidiary companies can earn up to LE3,000 a month, Gizawy says, but a worker doing the same job at the same level for the SCA can earn up to LE15,000, and “that’s not to mention the regular bonuses, housing compensation, medical care, and access to sporting clubs and other benefits granted to fulltime SCA employees," says Gizawy.

Workers in Sharm el-Sheikh have also been protesting, but their complaints are different — they’re fighting against mass layoffs at hotels and resorts as the tourism infrastructure there massively retracts.

Tourism in the coastal city was hard-hit after a Russian Metrojet airplane crashed in the Sinai Peninsula on October 31 shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh Airport.

Red Sea tourism has reportedly incurred losses of LE2 billion a month after tourists fled Sharm in the wake of the crash and Russia banned direct flights to and from Egypt, Egyptian Tourism Authority chief Samy Mahmoud told the privately owned daily Al-Shorouk.

Russia confirmed the tragedy was caused by a terrorist attack perpetrated by Sinai-based militants.

Around 30 percent of Sharm's workforce has been let go since the disaster, Tourist Guides Syndicate Treasurer Ahmed Hassan told Al-Shorouk.

Tourism workers are reportedly now filing complaints with the Manpower Ministry claiming they were fired illegally. Hotel managers have allegedly claimed their hotels needed to undergo renovation as a pretext to lay off the workers, and shut down several wings of their establishments, while other hotels have closed altogether. Many of those that remain open are on the verge of bankruptcy.

The mass layoffs in Sharm are triggering fears of increased unemployment rates across Egypt, particularly in the tourism sector.

Workers in Qalyubia are also unhappy. Since Tuesday, dozens workers have been protesting over their unpaid wages in front of the gates of public-sector Egyptian Dredging Company located in the town of Abu Zaabal, the privately owned news site Al-Bawaba reported. They say they haven’t been paid in two months.

And at the Shebin al-Kom Textiles Company in Monufiya, the entire workforce of 1,500 people has been on strike for four days to demand the payment of overdue bonuses, better wages and management changes. In addition, a group of former Shebin al-Kom Textile workers who say they were punitively fired or pushed into early retirement have been conducting their own protests for over a week to demand their jobs back.

Workers were galvanized to escalate their protest actions into a full-scale strike when the company’s security guards allegedly physically assaulted and injured several protesting workers last Saturday, the privately owned Al-Watan newspaper and Veto news site reported.

“Everyday for the past eight days, we have been protesting, rallying and demanding reinstatement in our company,” says Shimy. “Despite a court order for our reinstatement in 2011, we have not received any notifications or any proposals for our reinstatement.”

In addition, “we are demanding accountability for the administrative board,” says fired worker Ragab al-Shimy, “as well as the necessary investments to return our company to its original productive capacity, as opposed to the nearly 50 percent capacity at which it is now working.”

Previously a public-sector company, the Shebin al-Kom Textile Company was privatized almost 10 years ago when it was sold to the Indonesian-based Indorama Textiles Company. After workers filed lawsuits claiming the company was sold at below-market value, the Indonesian investors began divesting and firing workers en masse. The company's production dramatically deteriorated under these conditions.

In 2011, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled that the company was sold for less than its real value and ordered that it return to the management of the state-owned Holding Company for Textile Industries. The court also ordered the new managers to reinstate workers who had been fired or pushed into early retirement under the Indonesian owners.

In Alexandria, Upper Egypt, and several other governorates, some 12,000 workers employed by the state-owned petroleum services company Petrotrade have been on strike for the past 10 days as they demand their profit shares, which they say have only been distributed to top administrative board members, the privately owned Al-Tahrir news site reported.

The striking workers are based in 56 centers and offices across the governorate, Al-Shorouk reported. They have allegedly declined the company’s offer to implement a new profit-sharing agreement by March 15 if they suspend their strike.

Workers have held several strikes and protests at Petrotrade’s different branches nationwide over the past five years, but the majority have been in Cairo. The wave of worker dissatisfaction only recently spread to the Alexandria branches.

In Upper Egypt, workers reportedly occupied the Assiut Fertilizer Company factory on Wednesday to protest the administrative board’s decision to dock 25 percent of their wages. These deductions came just days after administrators established a new educational evaluation and placement system, according to Al-Watan.

Meanwhile, doctors working at hospitals belonging to the state-owned Health Insurance Authority have been protesting since early last week to demand parity with their colleagues employed by Health Ministry hospitals, which would include improved wages, benefits and working conditions.

The Doctors Syndicate planned a protest outside their downtown Cairo headquarters on Saturday to show solidarity with the protesting doctors, reported the state-owned Al-Ahram. The physicians are reportedly planning to escalate their protest actions if their demands are not met.

A list of these demands was sent to the Health Insurance Authority as well as the Cabinet, and the official responses — or lack thereof — will likely determine the doctors’ future course of action.

 

 

*Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

Workers question state claims of only 12.8% unemployment rate

Mada Masr

Workers question official statistics on unemployment figures

Monday, November 16, 2015

Jano Charbel 

According to figures published on Sunday by the state’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), unemployment increased slightly in the third quarter of 2015, affecting 12.8 percent of the Egyptian workforce.

CAPMAS reports there are currently 3.6 million unemployed Egyptians. According to these findings, the Egyptian workforce currently numbers around 28 million (from a total domestic population of over 89.4 million, with another eight million reportedly living abroad.)

Worker and labor rights activists, however, are questioning CAPMAS’s latest figures, claiming they are inaccurate.

CAPMAS indicates that 12.8 percent represents a minor increase in the national unemployment rate, as the second quarter of 2015 had registered a rate of 12.7 percent. This increase translates into 78,000 additional unemployed workers and employees in the third quarter of this year.

The figures do show improvement compared to the same quarter last year, when the official unemployment rate was 13.1 percent.

However, Fatma Ramadan, an industrial-safety inspector at the Ministry of Manpower and independent union organizer, believes that the unemployment figures cited by CAPMAS "are inaccurate and have been largely downplayed."

“The real unemployment rate may be up to double that which they are currently claiming,” she asserts.

"We demand genuine and accurate statistics regarding unemployment, so that we can find genuine solutions to this national problem,” Ramadan explains.

“Apparently, this unemployment rate doesn't include or take into account factors such as seasonal unemployment, temporary employment, masked and hidden unemployment, or child labor.”

Among those not accounted for within the statistics are homemakers, domestic help, and many other workers in the informal sector.

“CAPMAS calculates unemployment rates based on the numbers of those actively seeking employment — primarily at the offices of the Ministry of Manpower," Ramadan explains. “What typically happens is that if a jobless worker doesn’t find a job opportunity through the ministry, they don’t keep coming back.”

Ramadan adds that these workers may instead seek job opportunities via private employment firms, or informal networks.

Ramadan highlighted in particular the mass-layoffs associated with the closure of hundreds of state-owned factories since the 2011 revolution, adding that only a trivial number of new factories or industries are being established.

“The government is not concerned with the plight of unemployed workers, and this is reflected in the lack of implementation of judicial verdicts demanding that stalled public sector companies be re-operated, and that thousands of workers be reinstated,” Ramadan argues.

Proportional to the workforce, the unemployment rate in urban areas of Cairo currently amounts to 15 percent while in rural areas it reportedly amounts to 11.2 percent. These rates are gradually increasing – in both the countryside and cities – in comparison to the past four quarters.

CAPMAS issued additional details regarding the unemployment rate. According to its breakdown, 9.3 percent of males in the workforce are unemployed, while 24.9 percent of females in the workforce are currently jobless. Over the last few quarters, the unemployment rate continues to gradually increase among women, while it has slightly decreased among men.

Hisham al-Oql, one of nearly 600 former workers at the Tanta Flax and Oils Company, who has been unemployed for the past seven years, also points to the general governmental disinterest in labor rights.

Oql dismisses CAPMAS’s unemployment figures as inaccurate. "Real unemployment probably amounts to more than double the figure they’ve cited.”

“We are filing further legal appeals for the implementation of the court verdicts," Oql explains, referring to those issued in 2011 for the re-operation of stalled companies and reinstatement of workers. "Yet the government is simply ignoring our demands, and refusing to respect judicial rulings,” he adds.

Fifty-year-old Oql adds that he has to rely on his mother for financial assistance, so that he can support his wife and son.

For the past four years, Oql has been seeking to unify the efforts and demands of thousands of other jobless workers to demand the re-opening of the following stalled companies: Tanta Flax and Oils, Simo Paper, Nile Cotton Ginning, Nasr Steam Boilers and Omar Effendy department stores, among others.

Oql said the government talks of promoting production and creating additional job opportunities, but is not doing so effectively.

Ramadan also pointed to “an increase in the rate of punitive sackings of workers,” including laborers who are fired for organizing independent unions in their workplaces for protesting, striking, or "calling for the accountability of corrupt administrators.”

According to the independent unionist, the fourth quarter of 2015 may bear the grimmest unemployment rate yet, as tourism has been hit hard over the past two weeks in Sharm el-Sheikh and elsewhere, amid allegations of a bomb on board a Russian Metrojet passenger plane that crashed in Sinai, killing all 224 passengers and crew members on October 31.

Ramadan concluded that this employment crisis coincides with the high season of foreign tourism to Egypt.

*Photo courtesy of Aawsat.com

Police forcefully disperse Endowments workers' protest outside presidential palace

Mada Masr

Police forcefully disperse Endowments workers' protest outside Abdeen Palace

Monday, October 12, 2015

Jano Charbel

Police forcefully dispersed a sit-in by over 1,200 workers from the Ministry of Religious Endowments in the early hours of Monday morning outside Abdeen Presidential Palace.

The workers were demanding full-time contracts to reflect the hours they work, and the reinstatement of several thousand colleagues who were sacked by ministerial officials in recent months, among other demands.

One of the protesters, Sabry Shehata, told Mada Masr that riot police were deployed around midnight. By 12.30 am they were using batons to beat those who refused to evacuate the protest site.

The demonstration reportedly began at around 9 am on Sunday outside the headquarters of the Ministry of Religious Endowments in Downtown Cairo. After getting no response from ministerial officials, protesters relocated to Abdeen Presidential Palace, just a few blocks away from the ministry.

The plan was reportedly to carry out an open-ended sit-in until state officials met their demands.

Shehata said it was clear that police wouldn’t tolerate the protest outside the palace, even though they weren’t obstructing the street. “We had congregated in a grassy area by the side of the road and weren’t blocking traffic.”

Police officers told workers they didn’t have authorization to protest, let alone to protest outside one of the presidential palaces.

Several workers suffered from bruising after being beaten by riot police. But security forces didn’t use teargas, rubber bullets, or water cannons, and no arrests were reported, as has been the case with other recent protests.

Shehata asserted that their demands were professional and not political. “We have been employed by the Endowments Ministry for years without full-time contracts, despite the fact that we work full-time, six days a week. Many of us have been working on a full-time basis for five or six years, on temporary-work contracts.”

This means Endowments Ministry workers are effectively deprived of the minimum wage (a meager LE1,200 per month), job promotions, periodic bonuses, and comprehensive insurance coverage, among other basic rights.

Shehata, who has been employed as a custodial mosque worker for the Giza authority of the Endowments Ministry for six years, said he earns LE600 per month — half the minimum wage.

“I don’t have enough money to feed or clothe my two children,” he stated, adding, “I can make sacrifices and cut my own expenditures, but are my children supposed to go hungry too?”

Workers employed by the Endowments Ministry in the governorates of Beheira, Kafr al-Sheikh, Alexandria, Giza, and Gharbiya joined the sit-in with similar demands.

Hundreds of workers who had been fired from their jobs in Alexandria participated, demanding that they be reinstated. An estimated 4,000 workers were reportedly fired by the ministry’s authorities in this Mediterranean governorate.

Local media reported that the Endowments Ministry has incurred over a billion Egyptian pounds worth of debt to insurance companies, which may have led officials in Alexandria to make such a large number of redundancies.

Mohamed Hassan, a former worker at the ministry’s department in Alexandria, explained that he and nearly 400 other workers were fired in November 2014. As a mosque custodian working full-time on a part-time contract, Hassan said his total monthly wage amounted to just LE750.

“We were laid-off nearly a year ago, and haven’t been paid since then, as we didn’t agree to sign documents to forfeit our overdue bonuses, which we hadn’t been paid for over five years. We were punitively sacked, as we refused to be stripped of our rights.”

According to Hassan, officials explained that they couldn’t make the payments due to the large amount of debt the ministry owed.

“Our insurance payments were being deducted from our wages each month. Yet when we asked about our insurance policies, the ministry claimed we had none. So where has all this money been going?”
Hassan added: “Ministerial officials have repeatedly ignored us. It is on this basis that we sought an audience with the presidential spokesperson at Abdeen, but to no avail.”

The Ministry of Religious Endowments reportedly employs some 15,000 workers nationwide.

Several workers filed a collective lawsuit against the ministry and its employment policies, claiming they violate Egypt’s basic labor provisions. The Administrative Court is scheduled to examine these claims on November 1.

Shehata added that the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation has not supported workers in their quest for fair employment rights.



*Photo courtesy of ZoomNews

385 labor protests reported during second quarter of 2015

Mada Masr

Slight decrease in number of labor protests in 2nd quarter of 2015

Wednesday - July 22, 2015

The second quarter of 2015 has witnessed a nationwide total of 385 labor protests, according to figures compiled by the independent Mahrousa Center for Socioeconomic Development on Wednesday. This is a slight decrease in the occurrence of industrial actions, with a total of 393 labor protests reported in the first quarter of this year.

In comparison to Mahrousa’s figures from the year 2014, the first quarter (January-March) of last year witnessed 1,420 labor protests, while the second quarter (April-June) of that same year had witnessed a mere 231.

While greater than the total number of labor protests during the second quarter of 2014, the 385 industrial actions reported during the second quarter of 2015 include strikes, sit-in protests, marches, workplace occupations, work slowdowns, boss-nappings, and hunger strikes, among other forms of protest.

Contributing to the decline in the number of Egyptian labor protests (from the first quarter of 2015) are police crackdowns, lawsuits and other punitive measures against strike-leaders, together with legislation criminalizing the right to protest/strike or to freely organize trade unions, and a new judicial decree pushing striking public sector employees into forced retirement (issued by the Supreme Administrative Court on April 28.)

Under the auspices of the Ministry of Manpower, the signing of decrees to abstain from strikes – by representatives of both the state-controlled unions and independent labor federations – may also have contributed to the decline in work-stoppages and other industrial actions.

Mahrousa’s findings indicate that the driving forces behind many of these labor protests are demands for improved wages, overdue payments and bonuses, lack of promotions or pay raises, hazardous working conditions and poor safety standards, punitive sackings and mass lay-offs, forced relocations, pay-cuts, and demotions, among other grievances.

According to Mahrousa’s figures, most of these 385 labor protests took place among factory employees and manual workers – 136 in specific.

The second sector most affected by labor protests – with 68 protests – is reported to be the public sector, civil service and governmental institutions.

Disgruntled medical professionals and hospital staffs came in third place with 30 protests.

With 20 protests, Egypt’s educational sector, including employees of both public and private universities, represented the fourth sector most affected by industrial actions.

The fifth sector reported to be most affected by industrial actions is that of journalism and mass media, with a total of 19 protests.

Other sectors that have witnessed significant incidents of labor unrest during the second quarter of 2015 include those of agriculture, transportation, informal and seasonally employed workers, as well as imams and mosque employees.

Workers & journalists cite increasing punitive employment measures, sackings

Mada Masr

Workers claim increasing punitive measures are the result of state discrimination

Wednesday, May 13, 2015
 Jano Charbel

Workers and journalists raised a number of grievances during a conference on Tuesday, hosted by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), over increasing punitive measures against them in recent months.

Some claimed that such measures, which have included dismissals, forced relocations and retirements, pay deductions and criminal charges, are punishment for oppositional views to their employers or the state, whilst others point to a lack of legal recourse and legislation protecting their rights.

The criminalizing of the right to strike and lack of union or syndicate support was foremost in the minds of both workers and journalists, who voiced concerns and shared experiences.

Presented at this meeting were figures compiled by the recently-established 'Association of Laid-off Journalists' regarding the number of media staffers fired from their jobs since the beginning of 2015.

According to their figures, a total of 160 have been "punitively fired" from the state-owned Al-Ahram Media Company, 134 from the privately-owned Youm 7 Media Company, 67 from the privately-owned news portal Dot Masr, 30 from the privately owned Al-Dostour News, 18 from the privately-owned Shorouk News,  four from the private Al-Masry Al-Youm Media Company, and 12 from the privately-owned 3agel News website

Panelists at this conference, dubbed,  “Lay-offs, forced retirements, and trumped-up charges against labor leaders and journalists,” called for the release of Yasser Mahmoud, a worker from the state-owned Egypt Gas Company who was jailed on charges of instigating strikes, and of Mohamed Zaki, a worker who was sacked from the state-owned Petrotrade Company and is in police custody pending criminal investigations related to his involvement in strike action.

Grievances were also raised by workers from Egypt’s largest textile company, the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla al-Kubra. Prominent labor leader Kamal al-Fayoumy was sacked from his job on April 16, after company administrators charged him with instigating strikes resulting in millions of pounds worth of losses.

Prior to Fayoumy’s dismissal, another two labor leaders, Nagy Haidar and Gamal Gad were dismissed from the company in February for similar reasons.

“We went on strike in protest against the mismanagement and rampant corruption in our company,” Fayoumy said.

The company blamed our strike action for financial loses, which the state’s Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) reported amounts to LE1.3 billion, he explained, adding, “In reality, my two co-workers and I were sacked because we demanded accountability and an end to corruption.”

Fayoumy accused the current government of favoritism towards businessmen and investors, while neglecting employment rights.

Lawyer at the ECESR Alaa Abdel Tawwab sarcastically suggested, “Instead of celebrating Labor Day in Egypt, perhaps we should start celebrating the ‘Day of Punitive Dismissals’,” as they have become a daily occurrence.

He said lack of new legislation to replace the Trade Union Law 35 (1976) has meant that independent labor unions are still not recognized and that punitive measures are often taken against those involved in labor action in their workplaces as a result.

A draft law, the “Trade Union Liberties Law,” was prepared in 2011 to replace Law 35, but was never passed.

ECESR lawyers took part in a campaign — “Towards a Just Labor Law” — to draft a new law to replace Unified Labor Law 12 (2003). A draft was published on May 1 this year.

Labor activists claim the provisions of Law 12 (2003) facilitate the punitive sacking of workers for engaging in strikes and other industrial action.

Abdel Tawwab argued that, instead of siding with those demanding basic labor rights, Egypt's judiciary has actively sided against them.

“It is a catastrophe that the Supreme Administrative Court forced striking workers in the public sector into early retirement, especially as this violates Constitutional Article 15, and a host of international rights conventions to which Egypt is a state party.”

According to Abdel Tawwab, “If the court claims that strikes are criminal actions, then it is the court that is committing a crime” by violating the constitution.

The lawyer dismissed the court’s verdict that labor strikes are a breach of Islamic Sharia Law. “Sharia Law does not directly refer to strikes or other forms of industrial actions,” he said.

Ahmed Shaheed, a former fare-collector and independent unionist at the Public Transport Authority (PTA), is another labor leader who was sacked from his job this year for instigating strikes and obstructing public bus services.

Shaheed and the PTA authorities accuse each other of responsibility for hefty loses.

“Egyptian law now criminalizes workers’ protest marches, and penalizes public sector employees who exercise their lawful right to strike,” Shaheed said.

A total of 32 PTA employees, including Shaheed, are due to stand trial before the State Council Court on May 15, and again in another trial on June 13, for strikes they led in 2012 and 2013.

According to leftist labor lawyer, Haytham Mohamadeen, the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has taken criminal action against striking workers on the basis that they are harming the national economy, incurring financial losses, and deterring investment.

The government “never pursues businessmen for engaging in the equivalent of employers’ strikes, such as: mass lay-offs, punitive sackings, lockouts, factory closures, and capital flight abroad, even though such actions may strongly harm the national economy and incur billions of pounds worth of losses,” Mohamadeen asserted.

Recent remarks by the former justice minister, when he commented that the children of workers could not join the judiciary, are indicative of the regime’s classist attitudes, he claimed, adding, “You’ll never see the police cracking down on employers when they establish their chambers of commerce, or business associations.


*Photo by Jano Charbel

Egyptian dwarfs succeed in establishing trade union & constitutional amendment safeguarding their rights

Mada Masr
Dwarfs of Egypt Unite

Dwarfism-rights activists succeed in establishing associations, a trade union, and constitutional amendment safeguarding their rights

Tuesday, March 17, 2015


Jano Charbel

During the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt people with dwarfism were believed to be celestially-gifted little people - some of whom became renowned royal court officials, while many others were employed in esteemed occupations. In modern day Egypt, however, the story is very different.

Currently estimated to number around 75,000 nationwide - Egyptians with dwarfism suffer discrimination, marginalization, unemployment, and poverty. They are subjected to ridicule in schools, workplaces, and in public on a daily basis. *Dwarfs also cite a lack of affordable healthcare and easily accessible transportation, amongst other grievances.

It is on the basis of confronting such discrimination, and a host of socio-economic obstacles, that groups of Egyptian dwarfs have begun to unite their ranks in recent years.

The 'Association for the Welfare of Dwarfs in Alexandria' (AWDA) was officially established in this Mediterranean city in December 2012, while the 'Independent Trade Union of Dwarfs' was established in March 2014 and officially registered with the Ministry of Manpower. This labor union for dwarfs is the only such organization in the Arab World, and perhaps worldwide.

AWDA currently boasts a general assembly membership of around 120 - with smaller branches in Cairo, along with the Suez Canal cities of Port Said and Ismailiya.

This while the newly established 'Independent Trade Union of Dwarfs' currently has a membership of some 50 members, with only one union committee - which is also headquartered in Alexandria.

The Association for the Welfare of Dwarfs describes itself as being a venue for social, cultural and sports events. While the Trade Union of Dwarfs is concerned with its members' employment, vocational training programs, professional skills, workplace discrimination, and other labor-related issues.

Both the association and the union are open to the membership of any Egyptian with dwarfism.

While there is no official national census data or other records indicating the exact number of the dwarfism community countrywide. By AWDA's rough estimates there are some 400,000 Egyptians (the vast majority of whom are of full-stature) whose families include at least one person with dwarfism. Families headed by dwarf parents are particularly prone to economic hardships in contemporary Egypt.

CONSTITUTIONAL RECOGNITION

The association won an unprecedented victory last year when Egyptians with dwarfism were recognized in a constitutional amendment including them in employment quotas. The amendment also granted special consideration to the community in terms of their socio-economic rights.

Thanks to AWDA’s advocacy, the 2014 Constitution now stipulates in Article 81:

“The state is committed to ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities and dwarfs in terms of healthcare, economic and social rights, in the fields of culture, entertainment, sports and education. Along with the provision of job opportunities for them, the allocation of employment quotas, the creation of public facilities and an environment whereby they may exercise all their political rights so as to facilitate their integration amongst other citizens — in keeping with the principles of equity, justice and equal opportunities.”

A 5 percent employment quota is specifically stipulated for both public and private sector enterprises, in accordance with the labor law.

Previous constitutions provided these rights to citizens with disabilities, but never contained provisions specifically for dwarfs. Employers would thus often exclude people with dwarfism from such quotas, on the basis that they were not mentally or physically disabled.

Essam Shehata and his wife Nisreen Hamed were the driving force behind the amendment. Tireless activists for the dwarfism community since the 1980s and co-founders of AWDA, the couple successfully lobbied lawyers and other Constituent Assembly members to include these provisions during the constitution drafting process.

Shehata, AWDA's Director and the President of the Union for Dwarfs, told Mada Masr that the new provision of constitutional article 81 is not being enforced, however.

"Neither the state nor private businessmen are standing with us in terms of the providing employment opportunities for dwarfs."
Shehata added that political parties have also neglected the rights of Egyptians with dwarfism.

Some AWDA members have successfully maintained steady jobs in the public sector, working as customs officials, employees at the Alexandria Port Authority and in the healthcare sector. Yet these cases are the exception, not the rule.

Ahmed Fouad - who has dwarfism - is employed at the Health Ministry explained that public sector employers would typically not classify dwarfs amongst the ranks of the physically or mentally disabled, especially prior to the issuing of the (January) 2014 Constitution with its Article 81.

Fouad explained that - in his experience - "We would often find that employers do recognize the five percent quota for disabled persons. But instead of providing such people with jobs at their workplaces, they are paid to stay at home." He went on to criticize such practices as being dismissive and non-constructive acts of charity.

Fouad emphatically added: "We're not asking for charity, we are asking for our rights and for equal opportunities in our country."

BARRED FROM THE WORKFORCE

Unemployment or precarious employment is often cited as the most pernicious problem facing the dwarfism community.

AWDA co-founder and secretary for women’s and children’s affairs, Nisreen Hamed points out that the association’s professional skills workshops — such as courses in cellphone repairs and maintenance — have “proven that dwarfs are mentally and physically capable of performing technical work exactly like fully grown people."

Sami Ramsis has been out of work for three years. “I've been repeatedly seeking employment at the Ministry of Manpower's bureaus,” he says. “But the employees there ridicule me, saying normal people can't even find employment, let alone dwarfs.”

Ramsis feels like he's stuck in a cycle of social exclusion. "Since I can’t find a job, I can't buy or rent an apartment for myself,” he continues. “Since I don't have any steady income or an apartment, I can't get married or have a family of my own.”

And even if a person with dwarfism does get a job, he or she is then confronted with the problem of how to get there — many report that most forms of public transportation are inaccessible.

"I have no problem riding the tramway, but some buses and microbuses are very difficult to climb aboard. They are not easily accessible to people our height," AWDA member Qadria Mahrous says.

Other association members say they hope government officials or private donors will help to subsidize the purchase of cars or motorcycles that are modified for their height, so as to increase their mobility - and, by extension, their prospects for employment.

BUILDING COMMUNITY

AWDA may still have a long way to go when it comes to tackling issues of national infrastructure and transportation — but it has been successful in creating a community center, and offering the services and activities that Egyptian dwarfs can’t find elsewhere.

AWDA offers some medical services to its members, who often struggle with access to healthcare. Hamed explained that there are a multitude of different forms of dwarfism. Her association provides human growth hormone injections for those children whose specific form of dwarfism is caused by hormonal imbalances or nutritional deficiencies.

Hamed added: “from childhood dwarfs are ridiculed at school, then in adulthood suffer discrimination in employment,” she asserts.

“We've been calling on the Ministry of Education to raise awareness, to increase tolerance and acceptance of dwarf children in schools,” Hamed explains. “We want to end the physical and verbal bullying of dwarf students by their classmates.”

She hopes that increased efforts on the part of education officials will help to foster a sense of social integration and belonging that would ultimately lead to greater success later in life.

And aside from these crucial services, the social experience the association provides makes a major impact on its members’ lives.

"I enjoy the sense of community, and the company of friends I've made here. We can relate to each other's daily grievances,” says Mahrous.

The association convenes for its general assembly meetings on the first Friday of every month. Mahrous expressed her appreciation for the trips, excursions, (limited) health care assistance, pilgrimages to Mecca/Medina, Ramadan food packages, along with vocational training and job skills that AWDA offers its members.

These activities have helped to build a close, tight-knit community — Hamed proudly notes that at least six couples with dwarfism met and got married through the association. Several of AWDA's married members have subsequently produced offspring who are of full-stature.

Shehata is currently working to establish a National Day for Egyptian Dwarfs on March 27 to raise awareness regarding the community, and its needs and aspirations. AWDA is preparing events including football matches between teams of dwarfs, together with songs, dances, competitions, and cultural shows - by performers with dwarfism.

At the association's headquarters, five costumed AWDA members are rehearsing an Upper Egyptian stick dance and a Nubian jig in traditional costumes. They smile joyfully for their photo shoot, and say they’re excited to perform in front of an audience. They even hope to perform professionally in the future.

But the rehearsals might be in vain if Shehata doesn’t secure the funds required for such a national event.

"If we don't have sponsors to promote or financially assist us with these events, then we won't be able to be able to go ahead with them,” he explains. “Our plans for this National Day of Egyptian Dwarfs may have to be put on hold."

While the Association for the Welfare of Dwarfs in Alexandria does not have an official webpage, pertinent information on the Egyptian little people community can be found on the Dwarves Dot Com Facebook page.


*In interviews with Mada Masr, members of the community referred to themselves as "qezm/aqzam," literally "dwarf/dwarfs." This term has been contested globally, with some preferring to use "people of short-stature" or "little people," as there is no agreement on whether or not dwarfism is a disability. 
**Photos by Jano Charbel 

Schweppes workers protest imminent unemployment due to Coca-Cola merger

Mada Masr
Schweppes workers protest imminent unemployment due to Coca-Cola merger

Sunday November 16, 2014

Jano Charbel

 

For the past 17 days, some 850 workers have been protesting against their imminent dismissals as the Coca-Cola Egypt Company negotiates the purchase of the Schweppes Egypt Company. Dismissals of part-time workers and the deployment of a private security firm at the Schweppes factory have led workers to protest across the country, at their company’s eight branches.

An ongoing sit-in protest has been in effect since October 30 at the Schweppes factory in Cairo’s industrial satellite town of Sadat City, while protests are also being held at the company’s seven distribution branches in Giza, Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoura, Tanta, Ismailia and Assiut.

Moreover, this week the Schweppes Company’s drivers have been threatening to halt all distributions, in light of the non-renewal of their corporate drivers’ licenses.

Abdel Latif Emara, president of the local union committee at the Schweppes factory told Mada Masr, “Our first demand is to retain our jobs, in accordance with the country’s labor law.”

According to Ashraf Aboul Ela, secretary general of the union committee at the Schweppes factory, “It appears that both of these beverage companies are agreeing to sack us 850 workers, regardless of the law.”

Unionists have pointed out that both the Schweppes and Coca-Cola companies would be violating Egypt’s Unified Labor Law (12/2003) by sacking workers in the course of their merger.

According to Article 9 of this law “Mergers of establishments… shall not terminate the employment contracts of the establishment’s workers.”

Aboul Ela added that “our employers don’t care about the rights of us workers. These heavy-weight businessmen think they are above the law. They believe that us workers must willingly abide by the employers' whims.”

Aboul Ela went on to state that “the Ministry of Manpower is only concerned with us calling-off our sit-ins and protests. The officials there insist that there must be no protests during the course of their negotiations with these two companies. However, our protests and sit-ins are the only means by which we can push for our legally-stipulated rights.”

Workers are troubled by their imminent unemployment and the subsequent poverty for their family members.

Emara explained that the vast majority of workers at the Schweppes Company are over the age of 40 or 45. "It would be very difficult at this age, under these poor economic conditions, to seek new job opportunities. The livelihoods of our families and their well-being depend on these jobs we have."

The list of the Schweppes workers demands include: retaining all employees and maintaining all contracts, in light of the labor law; the payment of overdue profit-sharing payments (amounting to 10 percent of profits), which have not been paid over the course of 18 years; provision of all overtime work payments, unpaid over the course of 18 years; renewal of truck drivers’ licenses, and the maintenance of these distribution vehicles; provision of healthcare plans, which have been halted since September 30; and in case of subsequent dismissals, payment of six months wages per every year of service spent at the company.

Media spokespersons at both the Schweppes Egypt and Coca-Cola Egypt companies could not be reached for questions at the time of publication.

*Photo courtesy of Klmty Net