The subsistence math of Egypt's neglected workers

06 March 2007

One of the greatest obstacles facing Egypt's ruling National Democratic Party is an inability to do its math. Here's an example. A factory worker, we'll call him Mohammad, is an average citizen who has been working in a state-owned textile factory for 15 years. He has three children, a wife and no car. His salary is the equivalent of $70 per month, though he might get as much as $88 should the state deign to pay the profit-sharing bonuses guaranteed by his contract. Now comes the tricky part.

A kilo of meat costs the equivalent of around $6 - though in relative terms straight dollar conversions are inaccurate as a comparison; the prices may seem low, but not as a portion of substantially lower Egyptian salaries. A kilo of rice costs 50 cents. A kilo each of onions, tomatoes, and squash around $2.60. A kilo of milk - and kids need calcium to build strong bones - costs 75 cents. Not counting cooking oil ($1 per liter) and the butane gas tank needed to cook ($5.70), a solid meal will consume one-10th of Mohammad's salary. In other words, should he decide to use his earnings exclusively for food, he can look forward to 20 days of imposed fast in a 30-day month.

But wait, we almost forgot the rent for the three-room brick hovel where Mohammad lives, which is very reasonably priced at just $35 per month. Then there is the cost of the public transportation that Mohammad uses to get to work, which, since he walks a lot and takes buses, is also cheap but still comes to around $8.70 per month. Electricity, water, and phone costs have gone up, and however parsimonious Mohammad's family may be, they still spend another $13 or so on these monthly.

Once we subtract the transport, rent, and utilities from Mohammad's salary, we can see he's in a bind. He can now only afford to eat for three and a half days a month. Let us add the fact that he suffers from a kidney ailment, his wife has diabetes, and two of his children show signs of the insidious respiratory disease that afflicts a large percentage of Egypt's youth. Despite his healthcare benefits, doctors and medicine cost money. But never mind, Mohammad can do without all this and place himself and his family in the hands of his maker, who, under the circumstances, he will probably be meeting sooner rather than later.

Yet it isn't all that bad. Mohammad's wife, we'll call her Fatima, is a teacher, and has been since 1988. Her salary back then was the equivalent of only $8. But times have changed. Progress! After 19 years in her job, she makes $35. So five more days of decent food would be guaranteed, except for one thing: the children. They wear clothes and need books for school. Mohammad and Fatima are back to square one.

Millions of Egyptians wrestle with this sort of math daily, and they do not expect the government to solve it, since the problem itself is one of which their leaders seem grotesquely unaware. When Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif told the People's Assembly last December that salaries rose by 24 percent in 2006, he neglected to mention what they were to begin with.

A recent report by the Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies chided Nazif for his sloppy figures. Inflation was not 7.9 percent in 2006, as he claimed, compared to 7.1 percent in 2005; it was at least 11.7 percent in 2005, and presumably as much or more in 2006. By some estimates, including Mohammad and Fatima's, the prices of some basic commodities  have doubled in those two years.

It takes some pretty big numbers to excite the Egyptian authorities - billions of dollars of foreign investment work best - but the number of striking workers at several of Egypt's state-owned textile factories has recently caught their eye. In the second half of 2006, according to the Land Center for Human Rights, there were 115 protests in both the public and private sectors - everything from poultry farms and bakeries, to shipyards and cement, ceramic and refrigerator factories. 

The biggest strikes were in the textile sector, including one last December, involving 20,000 workers, and one a few weeks ago, involving 12,000. In both cases, the workers achieved a minor victory - they got the puny bonuses they were owed in the first place.

Workers complain that aside from slave wages, they suffer health-damaging conditions. Should they fall ill, they face being dismissed without severance pay. They are no longer served meals in the factories, and their state-sponsored monthly food allowance was recently reduced, enough for one bean sandwich a day. New employees must allegedly sign releases relinquishing their right to raises, time off, and other benefits. But at the heart of the workers' dilemma is the fact that they have no representatives in government to whom to present their complaints, nor are they legally allowed to strike to negotiate solutions.

The General Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions (GFETU) is a state-controlled institution. Far from protecting workers' rights, its officials, like the head of the Spinning and Weaving Syndicate, Said al-Gohary, say that strikers "are terrorists who want to sabotage the company." Little wonder that strikers have protested last November's union elections, saying they were rigged, demanding to choose their own representatives, and threatening to form their own unions should the state fail to oblige.

This intention, according to Ibrahim al-Azhari, the GFETU vice president, "is absurd ... [since] it threatens the stability of the country and society." Of course the opposite is true, since denying workers their rights is the shortest path to economic and political disaster, especially on the open-market road that Egypt claims to be following.

What is truly absurd is how the strikes are blamed on agitators, members of civil society, and the Muslim Brotherhood, instead of on the hardships workers face. This feigned inability to put two and two together is pure politics. In November, Brotherhood candidates were prepared to run for 50 percent of union seats and 15 percent of its board positions, but the state imposed last-minute conditions obstructing their candidacies, and vote counts were falsified to maintain the chosen ones in power.

The state fears free union elections for the same reason it fears free political ones, because its popularity is nil and opposition great. Indeed, the number of Muslim Brotherhood candidates reflects the group's penetration into the workplace. By eliminating competition unfairly, however, the government merely strengthens the opposition; by denying workers' rights, it amplifies their desperation and gravely curtails their productivity, with dire results for the economy. 

Here's another figure that excites Egypt's leaders: 34, which is "the largest number of constitutional amendments since 1980," says President Hosni Mubarak. Eleven of these amendments aim to remove the state's socialist framework and pave the way for "a better investment environment." Consequently, the workers will no longer be entitled to profit-sharing bonuses; privatization will receive a boost (meaning many workers may lose their jobs); and food and other subsidies will be withdrawn as the state unloads its former responsibilities.

Under these circumstances, there will be more and bigger strikes, quite possibly with violent outcomes. Although the drafted amendments flatly ignore them, Egyptian workers can make or break their country's future. Unless their situation is confronted honestly and their right to representation is restored, that future will amount to zero.

Maria Golia is author of a book on Cairo titled "City of Sand." She wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.