Q & A with Egyptian Journalism Students

Veteran labor communicator Ray Abernathy is traveling in Egypt, where he is meeting with union leaders and activists and sending dispatches to AFL-CIO Now. 

CAIRO—Do you think workers in Egypt will ever have the right to strike? Have you ever had a period in the United States when there were so many strikes? Are workers in the U.S. able to join unions? Do U.S. workers have rights and how do those rights compare to those of workers in Egypt? Do you think our workers will ever be able to have real unions?

I was visiting a class for young journalists at American University in Cairo (AUC) being taught by long-time Chicago Tribune labor reporter and Middle East correspondent Steve Franklin. The media had been caught by surprise last fall when a series of strikes by factory workers occurred.

Now, there’s only a single, government-controlled union for blue-collar workers in Egypt, the Egypt Trade Union Federation, which all government and public-sector workers are required to join. Public-sector workers have a limited right to strike and they are not prohibited from joining a union. Employers with the support of the union, have restricted the right to organize. When work stoppages began to roll across Egypt, reporters were baffled at how to cover them, and with more strikes developing, AUC asked Franklin to ramp up a series of workshops.

It was ironic that even as we were starting our discussion, the U.S. Senate voted 51–48 to proceed with a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, short the 60 votes needed for it to proceed. The Employee Free Choice Act would have leveled the playing field for workers seeking to form unions. It granted me a natural opening to explain to the journalists that while workers’ rights in Egypt are suppressed by law, workers’ rights in the United States are suppressed by practice (what the legal eggheads call de facto suppression).

The right to join unions?

We have legal, independent unions in the United States and workers are supposedly free to form or join unions, but when they decide to do so, their employers flaunt the law and defeat them by threatening, coercing, intimidating and firing union supporters. Our government refuses to enforce the laws we have protecting workers’ rights, and even when the laws are enforced, the penalties are too light to dissuade employers from attacking workers’ freedom to form unions.            

The right to strike? 

Yes, we have the right. But some employers permanently replace workers who do go on strike, and U.S. workers don’t have a real right to strike.  

Workers’ rights?

From the mild reaction to the strikes here in Egypt, it seems your government may not take a strong position on workers’ rights and unions. Our government in the states, on the other hand, seems to be determined to continue oppressing workers. The only way we can change that is to change governments, which we intend to do in 2008. Workers’ rights in your country as well as workers’ rights in our country depend very much on the freedom to form and join real unions and the right to strike. Without those rights, workers’ rights are not possible. 

Having sufficiently embarrassed me on the subject of workers’ rights in developing countries versus workers’ right in the United States, my good-natured inquisitors turned to even loftier questions.

Were Middle Eastern people living in the United States discriminated against after 9-11?

Certainly, and sometimes outrageously, but no internment camps were opened up.  

Is it fair to lump all people from all Middle Eastern countries together when it comes to questions of terrorism? 

No, but it’s what’s happening.  

Is it appropriate for a writer such as yourself to try and learn about Muslim culture and custom in distant countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan by visiting Egypt? 

No, but it’s the only trip I was invited to take or could afford. 

An appropriate coda to the student workshop was provided the next morning when Steve and I learned that 25,000 Egyptian school teachers had been walking [on strike] while we were talking. 

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