Egyptian Workers Seek Good Trade Deals

Dan Heck, Midwest regional director for Working America, recently visited Egypt as a member of a three-person delegation sponsored by the AFL-CIO Solidarity Center. This is his second post about his impressions of that country’s emerging independent union movement. Read Heck’s first post here. To learn more about Egyptian workers’ struggles to form free, independent unions, click here, here, here, here and here.      

I was particularly moved by the stories and requests of the workers in El-Mahalla el-Kubra, an Egyptian manufacturing city where working people have repeatedly stood up and demanded their rights. Even though the official trade union movement in Egypt opposes their efforts, the workers in El-Mahalla el-Kubra have organized and mobilized effectively at the grassroots for years. They play a leading role in the labor movement in Egypt and are an inspiration to working families around the world.

Crammed into a small room with about a hundred workers, we heard more than a dozen powerful stories from the workers in El-Mahalla el-Kubra. Some are dealing with unsafe work conditions and fear that if they were injured at work their employer would fire them. In some mills, choking dust fills the air, slowly destroying workers’ lungs. Some are forced to sign a letter of resignation on the first day of their job, so that an employer can fire them without cause at any time. Like here, some have been fired for organizing and demanding their rights.

Others face harassment, with the employer repeatedly moving them to new locations or changing schedules. Almost all are struggling with wages that barely allow them to stay above water. Many earn just a few dollars a day, some even less.

On top of this, foreign guest workers are being brought in to undercut even these meager wages.           

One worker discussed an employer that had left the country to avoid paying a decent wage. He asked whether it would be possible to have a U.S.-Egyptian trade agreement similar to the one we have with Jordan. Although there are still clear problems in Jordan, the agreement includes at least some protections for workers.

When I heard this question, I remembered a lot of the conversations I’ve had with workers in my home state of Ohio about this same issue. I saw a hint of what the world can look like if working families on opposite sides of the planet recognize and fight for their rights and dignity together. Something that had seemed abstract, that good trade agreements can help working people here and in other countries, suddenly became very real.

Good trade agreements can and should be one of the basic demands that working families everywhere make of their political leaders. They are one of the tools that can prevent a brutal “race to the bottom,” in which employers search the world for the most vulnerable and exploitable workers. This is one reason why we need to work hard to improve and strengthen worker protections in trade agreements and to ensure that we enforce these provisions consistently and energetically. We also have work to do in reforming other provisions of trade agreements, including the investment, procurement and services areas. 

The need for good, fair trade agreements is one of many concerns that working families in the United States and Egypt have in common.

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