CAIRO — Since June 12, half of the 18,000
workers who operate and service the Suez Canal
have been on strike. They are employed in maritime services
by seven subsidiary companies of the Suez Canal Authority in Suez,
Isma‘iliyya, and Port Said.
In contrast, those employed directly by the canal authority have always
received higher wages and better benefits. Long before January 25, 2011
subsidiary company workers raised the demand for parity, effectively a 40
percent wage increase.
Management
of the subsidiary companies accepted this demand in April, an expression of the
new possibilities of the post-January 25 era. But the interim government has
maintained that wages and working conditions of public service workers are
established by parliamentary legislation, and therefore, no changes can be made
while the parliament is dissolved. The strike expresses workers' rejection of
this logic.
Egyptian
workers have achieved increased strength and self-confidence in the course of
the revolutionary movement. This is expressed by the capacity to sustain a
five-week-long strike in an industrial sector linked to the economically and
strategically critical Suez Canal and by insisting
that economic demands be met despite the absence of the legal framework
established by the old regime. Labor unions continue to rebuff myriad
accusations in the press and by some of the "revolutionary youth" that workers'
economic demands are narrow "special interests" rather than "national
interests." In this respect, workers share the achievement of all Egyptians who
heeded the revolutionary call, "Lift your head high. You are an Egyptian" --
the recovery of their human dignity.
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