Egypt’s Workers Struggle to Keep Unions Free
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The first recorded workers’ strike was more than 5,000 years ago by the builders of the Pyramids in Egypt. Today, despite substantial government repression and persecution of workers, thousands of Egyptian workers are carrying out that long tradition of protest across their country. The Solidarity Center reports that from 2004–2008, some 1.7 million workers in Egypt participated in 1,900 strikes and their voices have grown even louder in the last two years.
This week, the AFL-CIO honored the courageous men and women of the Egyptian workers’ movement with the prestigious George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award, the first time the U.S. union movement has honored a workers’ organization from the Middle East.
USW Tells China to Stop Treading on U.S. Tire Makers
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Chinese tire makers are treading on the U.S. tire industry, dumping more than 46 million low-cost tires into this country last year alone to be sold in stores like Wal-Mart, among others. The result, unfortunately, is all too familiar: Cheap imports = lost jobs and shattered communities.
The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents most of the U.S. tire workers, is demanding that the Obama administration act forcefully to restore a balanced trading field. The union wants the administration to impose tough tariffs on Chinese tires for at least three years.
Last month, the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) ruled in favor of a USW petition filed under Section 421 of the Trade Act of 1974. The USITC found that tariff relief was needed to urgently reduce those tire imports. Evidence showed that more than 5,100 domestic consumer tire production jobs were lost between 2004 and 2008 by the flood of Chinese tire imports that undersold producers in the United States. Domestic tire companies have announced they will close more plants and eliminate another 3,000 jobs by the end of this year.
