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Michael Moore: "This is a Class War"

"This is a Class War": Michael Moore Calls for Renewed Pro-Democracy Movement as Anti-Union Bills Approved in Wisconsin and Michigan.

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Egypt's Labor protests, again and again!!

Does anyone have an objection when we say that the revolution is not over yet and need to continue it? I guess the answer is no: it's not over yet.. We need to continue.

Good, what about the labor protests going on now?

The Egyptian people started their revolution, 40% of them at least was (and still) below the poverty line of $2 a day income. The day by day suffering of Egyptian families is still going on. So, middle-class talky talkers who go back home everyday to find their hot meals and a safe place to spend the night in don't really feel what kind of miserable life the workers are going through Let's agree on that.

Yes, yes.. I know the answer: we are in the middle of a revolution. When we are done with it, the system will be alright and the workers will automatically get their rights back. But, when the workers insist on the continuing their protests, they are stopping "the production wheel" and delaying the "progress of economy" (yea, they assume that the production wheel was running and the progress was on all the time!). OK, let's discuss this..

The business in Egypt can be logically divided into public and private sector. Let's go with private sector first. Here's the situation: Bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are making millions and millions every year and employing tens of thousands of workers who work under very stressful conditions and get paid almost nothing. Now, the workers want their rights back from the millionaires; they want more salaries ad better working conditions. Now, you are saying that you want the production wheel to go on? So, why the hell don't you ask those millionaires to pay the right of workers back to make them go back to their work and continue production?! It drives me crazy to find all people talking and attacking workers for their continuing struggle to get a decent life and not trying for once to blame and attack businessmen who are robbing their workers in the first place! You wanna the so-called production wheel to continue, talk to employers and millionaires not to poor workers for God's sake!

OK, now to the public sector.. Let's agree that the regime wasn't just Mubarak. Mubarak was the head of this corrupted regime but the real body of it is represented in every company, university and institution in Egypt. To topple this regime, we need to topple every head of every governmental institution. This is what the labor protests are doing now. Besides, if we wanna a powerful political life in the future, unions of workers and employees need to be formed everywhere. This is the main starting point and this can only be done by the ongoing struggles and protests. Another thing: let's assume that the Egyptian govt don't have enough money to implement the verdict of the minimum wage of 1200 LE (the truth is they have the money, they should move their asses and get money stolen by the corruption apparatus of Mubarak's regime; that would be enough!), why they don't adopt the verdict firstly and set a time frame to implement it to assure the workers that they will really get their rights back and this is not a game played against them as they used to!

The only thing I can't understand is that when everyone needs to take an attitude and say crap here and there, they attack workers and farmers! Those workers and farmers are the ones who make everything we use and every food we eat and they don't even got fairly paid for that. We can't be sitting on our asses; using what they make and eating what they farm and after all, attack and judge them!!

Workers Struggle Continues in Egypt

Reports on labor protests from everywhere!

Protests among workers of the Egyptian postal, subway and mining services continued on Monday.

In the cities of Kafr al-Sheikh and Fayoum, Egyptian Post workers staged protests, demanding better salaries and bonuses.

Workers of the Subway Authority staged protests in Helwan. They wanted to substitute their temporary contracts with permanent ones. “The authority’s president had on 17 January ordered permanent contracts for us,” said Islam Ahmed. “But his orders were not carried out even though we have been working here for 15 years.”

Miners in the Baharia Oasis also staged protests. They demanded higher wages and better working conditions

In Minya, Coptic Christians on Sunday protested before the city’s security headquarters. They claimed they were denied elections cards and thus would not be able to cast their votes in the upcoming referendum on constitutional amendments.

In Ismailia, workers of the Suez Canal Authority staged protests for better salaries and bonuses.

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Army's Real Face: Military Police Cracks Down Oil Workers Sit-in

(Oil workers protesting, my photography)

The military police cracked down a sit-in of oil workers in front of the Oil ministry in Cairo and arrested 20 workers. The workers have staged their sit-in demanding equality with other branches and companies of Oil industry.
This crackdown of the workers sit-in is another signal the army is giving us about their real face andattitude.. We need to carry on and continue our own revolution by ourselves...

Video: John Rees on Socialists and the Middle East Revolutions

John Rees on Socialists and the Middle East revolutions..

From Unionists in US to Workers in Egypt: "Our Solidarity!"

A statement that has been circulated by US unionists in solidarity with Egyptian workers:

As trade unionists, we join our Egyptian sisters and brothers in welcoming the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak. We salute the courage of the Egyptian people who have shed blood and endured many sacrifices in their struggle for democracy, which continues to unfold. The revolution has already inspired people from Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Algeria to Wisconsin to resist the same system of economic injustice and repression.

The roots of this revolution are in a decade of labor revolt against policies that made Mubarak the richest man in the world, while impoverished Egyptian workers earn 43 cents per day.

These workers toppled Mubarak and have continued to challenge a neoliberal regime of privatization, deregulation and union-busting engineered--and brutally enforced throughout the region--by the United States and its allies, taking many actions, including striking and forming new independent trade unions.

Moreover, Egyptians want an end to their government's complicity in U.S. wars of conquest in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and elsewhere, and in Israel's brutal siege on Gaza.

To keep these detested policies in place, Egypt has long been--after Israel--the largest recipient of U.S. military aid. Thus, while mouthing democratic platitudes, the Obama administration backed Mubarak to the very end, even allowing him to draw on the $1.3 billion in U.S. funding that killed more than 300 democracy protesters.

First, the U.S. and Israel sought to replace Mubarak with vice president, CIA asset and torturer-in-chief, Omar Suleiman--who has helped Israel to strangle Gaza, and openly threatened the revolution with a "coup." Now, it backs the army, which already has refused to rescind repressive emergency laws, has evicted democracy protesters from Tahrir Square, and has threatened to ban independent unions and strikes.

While Egyptians are standing firm, they need support to ensure that this revolution is not--like those in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), the Congo (1961), Chile (1973), and so many others--drowned in a sea of blood by the U.S. and its client regimes.

Therefore, we demand that the U.S. cut off all aid to the Egyptian dictatorship--right now.

We also call on all supporters to immediately converge on Egyptian embassies, missions, consulates, and at U.S. government offices, in response to any further attack on the revolution.

We also join with millions of Egyptians to say:

No Mubarak, No Suleiman, No U.S. Puppet Dictator!
Don't Leave the Streets!
Support Egyptian Strikers!
Free the Political Prisoners!
Arrest the Killers and Torturers!
No Neoliberal Economic Austerity!
Open the Border to Gaza!
FULL REGIME CHANGE!

Revolution spirit everywhere: A general strike considered in Wisconsin

(Photo from Mark Danielson/flickr)

Democracy Now! reports Wisconsin workers protests:

Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker is expected to propose deep cuts to the state’s health programs for the poor and aid to local governments. Walker has also threatened to start the process of laying off 1,500 state workers unless 14 Democratic senators return to the state and vote to refinance millions in debt. The Walker administration is coming under intense criticism for largely shutting off the State Capitol to protesters ahead of his speech..

Here is a live Twitter timeline to follow workers fight there!

Solidarity from Egypt, dear comrades!

Union solidarity with Egypt: UTLA

A statement of solidarity from the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) with the Egyptian revolution and the ongoing workers' strikes and protests:

Support democracy and workers' rights in Egypt! End U.S. aid to the military regime!

MOVED THAT UTLA express our support for the struggle for workers' rights in Egypt following the heroic protests that ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak, and for the recent formation of the Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions as an alternative to the state-controlled Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions.

Further moved that UTLA express our support for the immediate transition to free and fair democratic elections, and demand that President Obama and the U.S. Congress immediately halt all financial support for Egypt's military regime--which has ruled the country and thwarted democracy for six decades.

Rationale: The U.S. government gives Egypt's military regime approximately $1.3 billion per year. This "foreign aid" does not help the 40 percent of Egyptian people who survive on less than $2 per day, but instead helps the military purchase the tear gas, guns and other weapons that were used by Mubarak's police and supporters to attack the peaceful democracy protesters in Tahrir Square.

It is unconscionable that our tax dollars are being used to help foreign governments repress their own populations while education, health care and other public services face budget cuts and layoffs across the U.S.

A rising wave of workers' struggles, strikes and union organizing played a critical role in Mubarak's ouster. Now for the first time many Egyptian workers are creating their own independent unions not controlled by the government. The right to independent unions is a cornerstone of democracy and civil liberties. Our sisters and brothers in the Teachers Independent Union are among the founders of the Egyptian Federation for Independent Unions.

Time Sensitive: Protests and strikes continue as we speak in Egypt, with the future of the country in the balance every day. Messages of support from unions like ours will make a huge difference by giving confidence to the Egyptian workers' movement. Moreover, President Obama just announced his budget proposal, which cuts dozens of crucial public services at a time when they're needed the most.

Thus the federal government is now deciding on budgetary expenditures, including aid to Egypt and other undemocratic regimes. Now is the perfect time to demand "money for educators, not for dictators!"

UTLA House of Representatives, Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Workers protests are still challenging the military orders

Only 24 hours after t military junta's decision about banning strikes, a wave of workers protests and strikes swept different locations in Egypt. Omar Effendi's workers, Egypt Postal workers, local council's employees, Swiss Co. workers, Basyoun Brothers Co. workers, Ezz Dkhayla workers and peasants in different locations painted a brilliant portrait of how to continue the revolution.

Egyptian military kills a woman and arrests workers in Suez

The Egyptian military is now proving their real attitude towards our revolution. A military truck just killed a woman in Suez during moving to transport some of drivers military arrested after breaking down drivers sit-in. In Cairo also, the military police has allegedly arrested 5 workers from the Egyptian Railways workshops after they staged a sit-in. I think it's becoming very clear to all people now. If we do wanna make a COMPLETE change, then back to supporting strikes and back to Tahrir square...

Strikes And Our Permanent Revolution in Egypt

I couldn't have imagined that in the middle of our revolution, I might find someone to say that the revolutionaries shouldn't call for any strikes! I thought it was an ABC in the handbooks of the revolutions(!) that after toppling the police and the dictator and intervention of the military, the only weapon to use is the strikes. The military can kill people protesting but CAN NOT deal with striking workers sitting at their home! So, again, to remind: the strikes are the only way to continue our revolution for these reasons:
1- Before anything, the demands of all strikes and protests now are very legit! They need to have a good life with average standards and actually the participated in the revolution for that very reason.(This is especially true if we put in mind that there is already a verdict of the minimum wage setting it to 1200 LE)
2- The strikes are the main tool people can use to exert more and more pressure on the military to meet ALL the demands of the revolutionaries as the huge businesses worldwide won't stand anymore losses.
3- The revolution was calling for toppling and destroying the whole regime not Mubarak only. Mubarak has gone but there is a lot and a lot of corruption soldiers in every sector of the state. The strikes are the main tool to expose those corrupted officials and remove them. Egypt is like a big ship now, the captain has been killed but we still need to shake this ship well to force all the rats to leave that ship and run away! Strike is the way to make that shaking!
4- If we are looking for a good political environment in Egypt in the future, we need to start building it's core now; and that's the unions. Workers have to start building independent unions everywhere and rebuild new forms to communicate. This needs to be done ASAP as the strikes waves are already there, people are still in the euphoria of the victory and there won't be any police harassment anytime soon!

Mahalla Workers Makes A New Victory

(photo from 3arabawy)

One day after the military junta warned Egyptian workers from continuing striking, Mahalla textile workers managed, after 4 days of striking, to topple the NDP-backed CEO and to raise their development bonuses with 100% and their monthly bonuses with 50%.
This new victory makes it very clear: the widespread protests and strikes everywhere is the main way to continue our revolution and remove all forms of corruption in all sectors of the state (i.e making a TRUE revolution)..