Revolutionary Socialists' statement following the victory of the tax strike in Jan 2008.. The blog posting included a call for establishing an independent union...
On Thursday of last week the minister of labour was in marathon negotiations
with textile workers’ leaders representing 22,000 workers at the giant mill in
Mahalla al-Kubra.
The minister bargained desperately—narrowly avoiding a strike that would have
brought out most of the textile sector
the correction of the path of the revolution”.
Five feeder marches set off from the city’s working class districts to the
square after prayers.
At the same time, 40,000 teachers were gathering outside parliament. “Meet our
demands or no school this year” read their banners
The military council promised to implement existing laws against strikes and
demonstrations, with live bullets—and revive Mubarak’s hated emergency laws.
But the strike wave rolled on. Some 26,000 sugar refinery workers joined the
battle.
Hundreds of textile workers from the Indorama textile factory in Shibin
al-Kom occupied the provincial governor’s office the same day.
Collective action from below has again knitted together the fight for national
liberation with the struggle for social justice
The internal crisis generated by this clash is feeding a growing external
crisis.
Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised to send the Turkish
navy to protect future humanitarian convoys to Gaza and has expelled Israeli
diplomats.
The contrast between Erdogan’s stance and that of the Egyptian generals was
not lost on the Egyptian masses
The last month has seen a qualitative shift towards co-ordinated national or
sector-wide strikes in several key industries including the railways, post,
education and textiles.
Many are winning serious concessions from the state
without walking out, prompting new groups to raise demands.
"We should be grateful we have today all these technological resources that didn't exist for the 19th and 20th C revolutionaries.. But this technology should be complimentary and a logistical support for whatever we do ON THE GROUND…"
“Workers use the same slogans as those of Tahrir … but referring to the mini-Mubaraks they have in their firms,” journalist and activist with the Revolutionary Socialists Hossam El-Hamalawy told DNE.
"Those workers are not simply demanding extra wages like what the media is trying to propagate — they are fighting corruption and turning the economic struggle to a political one," he added.