Striking workers: Egypt’s new military-led government has adopted the same tough line on labour activism and trade unions as its predecessors. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Sep 9 2013 (IPS)

It was the Egyptian state’s brutal restrictions on worker freedoms that transformed Kareem El-Beheiry from a disengaged lay worker into a tenacious labour activist.

In April 2008, El-Beheiry was arrested during mass demonstrations that followed a government crackdown on workers protesting low wages and rising living costs in Mahalla El-Kubra, an industrial city 100 kilometres north of Cairo. The young factory worker had used his mobile phone to capture and share video footage of fierce clashes between security forces and protesters until police swooped in and grabbed him.

Authorities accused El-Beheiry of using his blog on labour rights to instigate the Mahalla uprising, which originated at the textile mill where he worked. Three people were killed and hundreds injured in two days of rioting that engulfed the city after state security forces stormed the factory to prevent thousands of striking workers from gathering there.The Egyptian Centre for Social Rights reported 1,400 collective worker actions in 2011 and nearly 2,000 in 2012. It cited 2,400 social and economic protests during the first quarter of 2013.

El-Beheiry, now 28, recalls how he spent two months in prison, where he was abused, deprived of food, and tortured with electric shocks. Even after his release, he had to fight a legal battle to return to his job – the factory’s manager had sacked him for failing to show up for work during his imprisonment.

Reinstated on a court order, the flagged employee was transferred to the state-owned company’s Cairo office in 2009, where he was fired three months later on spurious charges.

“Every day I commuted to Cairo and signed in, but the management destroyed my attendance record and claimed I never showed up for work,” he says. “I have a court order (for my reinstatement), but the factory manager refuses to honour it.”

El-Beheiry’s ordeal exemplifies the extent to which the authoritarian regime of toppled president Hosni Mubarak was willing to go to isolate and intimidate dissident workers. The state tolerated a degree of political opposition, but when it came to labour issues, any action that threatened to galvanise workers into a cohesive labour movement was swiftly crushed.

Successive governments relied on the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), a colossal state-backed labour organisation with 24 affiliated trade syndicates, to control workers and prevent them from engaging in industrial action. When strikes did break out, the regime smothered them with the riot police and hired thugs – and if that failed, called in the army.

“Mubarak only knew one way to deal with labour disputes: force,” says El-Beheiry.

The former mill worker, now a project manager at an NGO that helps workers unionise, says the 2008 Mahalla revolt was a game changer for Mubarak’s regime. The labour movement that emerged from the city’s grimy factories stirred Egypt’s long-quiescent working class, sparking a wave of wildcat strikes that played a crucial role in persuading the army to remove Mubarak during the 2011 uprising.

But the strike wave did not end with Mubarak’s fall. It smouldered and spread under the 18 months of military rule that followed, and during the year-long rule of president Mohamed Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Egyptian Centre for Social Rights (ECESR) reported 1,400 collective worker actions in 2011 and nearly 2,000 in 2012. It cited 2,400 social and economic protests during the first quarter of 2013, which coincided with Morsi’s presidency.

Joel Beinin, professor of Middle East history at Stanford University argues that despite small concessions aimed at ending strikes, Morsi largely relied on the same apparatus to quash labour dissent, and proved no more willing than his predecessors to address its underlying causes. At the heart of the underlying causes lie gross inequalities.

The Muslim Brotherhood leadership is “just as committed to the free-market fundamentalism promoted by the international financial institutions as the Mubarak regime was,” he writes. “When workers continued to strike and protest, Morsi’s administration, like the Mubarak regime, often granted their economic demands but ignored their political demands and undermined their organisational autonomy.”

Many of the demands are not new. During the twilight years of Mubarak’s rule, the government’s neo-liberal economic programme heightened unemployment, stripped welfare benefits, and widened the gap between rich and poor. Economic conditions have continued to deteriorate in post-revolution Egypt.

Impoverished workers are protesting for better wages, job security, payment of overdue benefits, and a liveable minimum wage. They have also demanded to exercise the right to freedom of association as guaranteed by international labour treaties to which Egypt is a signatory.

Workers have organised into thousands of independent trade unions since Egypt’s 2011 uprising, but their legitimacy is challenged by Mubarak-era legislation that only recognises ETUF-affiliated syndicates.

Adel Zakaria, editor of Kalam Sinaiyya (Workers’ Talk) magazine says that instead of reforming or dissolving the mammoth state-controlled labour body, Morsi’s administration “tried to co-opt it in order to control its four million members.”

Despite some promising signs, including the appointment of a veteran union organiser as labour minister, rights groups say the new regime is already shaping up to be a lot like its predecessors.

In August, security forces moved in to break up a month-long strike by steel mill workers protesting unpaid wages and bonuses. Days later, riot police forcefully put down a strike at a petroleum company over unpaid bonuses and intolerable working conditions.

Strike leaders have been sacked, and several protesting workers were reportedly referred to prosecutors under laws that criminalise unauthorised collective labour action.

The ruling regime has attempted to paint striking workers as counter-revolutionaries and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, a loaded association given the military’s crackdown on the group.

Military leader General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has called on workers to take action against the “instigators” of strikes, and promised to deal firmly with those who disrupt the wheels of production.

“We will help quell this sedition,” he said. “Don’t let anybody interrupt production because this is another means of tearing the country down.”

Egypt's military rulers have set security solutions over political ones. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Aug 22 2013 (IPS)

Egyptian military leader General Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said ousting the country’s first elected president was necessary “to preserve democracy” and resolve the political deadlock that had dangerously polarised the country. But six weeks after the coup he led, the notion that toppling Islamist president Mohamed Morsi would restore stability to Egypt has proven false.

Instead, the confrontations between the army and supporters of the ousted president have led to violent chaos and given the military a free hand to restrict freedoms and rebuild the apparatus of Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. A court ordered the release of Mubarak himself on bail.

“The biggest threat facing Egypt remains the return of the police state. More specifically, the threat concerns not only the reconstitution of a police state, which never really left since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, but also the return of the implicit, if not overt, acceptance of the repressive practices of the coercive apparatus,” said political analyst Wael Eskander writing in the independent Jadaliyya ezine.

At least 1,000 Egyptians have been killed and thousands injured since the army stormed pro-Morsi demonstrations in Cairo on Aug. 14 using live ammunition. Another 160 protesters, mostly members of the Muslim Brotherhood that forms the core of Morsi’s support, were killed in clashes with security forces in July.“A Muslim Brotherhood driven underground, a leading military figure, an assertive police force, and submissive liberal bloc is perhaps the most apt description of pre-2011 Egypt.”

The post-coup casualty figure has exceeded that of the 18-day uprising that toppled former president Mubarak in 2011. By all accounts, the military operation to clear public squares of largely peaceful and unarmed protesters calling for Morsi’s reinstatement has been far more brutal.

Rights group Amnesty International described the crackdown as “utter carnage”, blasting Egypt’s military-backed government for its excessive use of force.

The level of violence is shocking but not surprising, says rights lawyer Negad El-Borai, who recalls the heavy-handed tactics the military used to intimidate opposition activists during the 17 months it ruled Egypt between Mubarak’s fall and Morsi’s election.

“The last time the army was in power anyone who spoke out against them was beaten, humiliated or killed,” El-Borai told IPS. “That’s just how these guys operate.”

Despite the military’s poor track record in domestic politics, many liberal and leftist Egyptians supported the army’s Jul. 3 coup, seeing military intervention as preferable to rule under the Muslim Brotherhood. Their virulent anti-Brotherhood sentiment in effect provided a mandate to remove Morsi and use force against the Islamic group’s members.

It has also “distracted them” from the striking return to the days before the 2011 uprising, say analysts.

Having ousted Morsi and suspended Egypt’s flimsy constitution, the military has used the façade of a civilian interim government to rebuild the institutions that propped up Mubarak’s corrupt and repressive regime.

The old guard is slipping back into place. Egypt’s cabinet has been stripped of Islamists and stacked with Mubarak-era figures, including former ranking members of Mubarak’s now-dissolved National Democratic Party. More than half of the 18 provincial governors appointed last week are former army or police generals – some with chequered records of conduct during the 2011 revolution.

The “militarisation of the state,” as one opposition party spokesman described it, has been carried out under the cover of a pernicious propaganda campaign aimed at vilifying Morsi’s supporters. The ruling junta and its media allies have whipped up hysteria against the Brotherhood, painting the group’s members as paid dupes and terrorists using the sort of patriotic rhetoric typically reserved for arch-enemy Israel.

Eskander argues that a “war on terror” is the perfect legitimising tool for a government without democratic credentials that is seeking to violently suppress its political opponents. The terrorism threat has allowed Egypt’s security services to regain “their traditional role as an arbiter of these conflicts, as well as their licence to employ abusive, repressive tactics.”

Since Morsi’s ouster, authorities have rounded up hundreds of Brotherhood leaders and supporters on charges of inciting violence and terrorism. The government has also hinted that it would ban the 85-year-old Islamic group – a move that could drive it underground, where it spent most of the past 60 years.

Security solutions “will only reinforce the Brotherhood’s rigidity… [and] further empower the coercive apparatus,” warns Eskander. “As extremist groups are pushed into hiding, the security leaders will find excuses to employ intrusive surveillance measures, interrogate, torture, and abuse, all with zero transparency and accountability.”

There are signs this is already happening. In short order, Egyptian security officials have restored Mubarak-era emergency laws, imposed a curfew, and issued a standing order to use live ammunition.

The interior ministry has also formally reinstated a number of state security departments dismantled following the country’s 2011 uprising. Among these are the notorious police units that were responsible for the investigation, forced disappearance and torture of thousands of Islamists and political dissidents during Mubarak’s rule.

Tarek Radwan, associate research director at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Centre, has not declared Egypt’s revolution dead, but sees alarming parallels emerging.

“If this picture sounds familiar, it is,” he wrote. “A Muslim Brotherhood driven underground, a leading military figure, an assertive police force, and submissive liberal bloc is perhaps the most apt description of pre-2011 Egypt.”

A protester rests during a day of clashes after President Mursi expands his powers. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Nov 24 2012 (IPS)

When Mohamed Mursi was sworn in as president in June there were concerns that the first democratically elected president in Egyptian history would be subservient to the military council that had ruled the country since dictator Hosni Mubarak was toppled in early 2011.

But by August, Mursi had pulled off a political coup, issuing a decree that purged the military of its leadership and left him in sole control of the government, with full executive and legislative authority. A decree issued Thursday expanded Mursi’s power even further, putting his decisions beyond dispute and neutralising the judiciary that was one of the last institutions challenging his Islamist government.

“Not since the days of the pharaohs has an Egyptian leader amassed so much power,” says Ahmed Hamid, an activist protesting in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. “Even Mubarak never dared to go this far, and you saw what happened to him.”

Mursi’s decision to expand his own powers set off a political firestorm, exposing deep rifts between his supporters – predominantly members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other conservative Islamic groups – and the liberal and secular Egyptians who are his main opponents. Clashes erupted as the rival camps held demonstrations in cities across Egypt on Friday.

In a seven-article declaration, Mursi sacked the Mubarak-era prosecutor general and ordered new investigations and trials of all those accused of killing or injuring protesters since the start of last year’s uprising – a decision that could see Mubarak retried.

More contentiously, he declared the upper house of parliament and the constituent assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution immune from dissolution by any court. The move appears aimed at pre-empting the verdicts of ongoing legal challenges that could see either body declared unconstitutional.

Mursi gave the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly an extra two months to draft a new constitution to replace the one suspended after Mubarak’s ouster. He ordered work to continue despite resignations by almost all of the assembly’s secular and Christian representatives, which have cost it much of its legitimacy.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali announced on national television that Mursi’s expanded powers were necessary to “protect the revolution’s gains” and end the stalemate with the judiciary that has stalled Egypt’s democratic transition. He said the presidential decree was aimed at “cleansing state institutions” and “destroying the infrastructure of the former regime.”

Egyptians who fought to bring down Mubarak’s authoritarian regime were particularly alarmed by a clause in the decree that states the president’s decisions cannot be suspended or revoked by any authority. Banners carried by protesters warned that Mursi had become “the new pharaoh.”

“The decree effectively renders presidential decisions final and not subject to the review of judicial authorities, which may mark the return to Mubarak-style presidency, without even the legal cosmetics that the previous regime employed to justify its authoritarian ways,” journalist Hesham Sallam wrote in an op-ed piece.

Mursi also granted himself the authority to take “any measures he sees fit in order to preserve and safeguard the revolution, national unity or national security.”

The clause assigns the president broad and only vaguely defined powers. Some activists drew comparisons to emergency laws under Mubarak that allowed security forces to arbitrarily arrest, torture and imprison political dissidents with impunity.

“Protesting here today against Mursi could be viewed as a ‘threat’ to the revolution or national unity,” says protester Mustafa Abbas, a primary school teacher. “This is a dangerous article that opens the door for witch hunts of the president’s opponents.”

Mursi’s declaration evoked strong reactions across Egypt, filling squares with demonstrators and reviving the spirit and slogans of the uprising last year that toppled Mubarak.

“The people want the downfall of the regime,” protesters chanted in Cairo.

And in a scene reminiscent of the heady days of the revolution, television stations used split screens to cover Friday’s pro- and anti-government rallies. As riot police rained tear gas down on his critics in Tahrir Square, Mursi triumphantly took the stage at a rally organised by the Muslim Brotherhood, claiming the mantle of the revolution.
“I never sought legislative authority and I would never use it to settle scores, but if my people, my nation, or Egypt’s revolution are in danger then I must,” he said.

Hoping to assuage fears, Mursi promised to relinquish his supplementary powers once a new constitution is adopted and a new parliament elected.

Nathan J. Brown, an expert on Egyptian law and politics at George Washington University, interpreted the underlying message: “I, Mursi, am all powerful. And in my first act as being all powerful, I declare myself more powerful still. But don’t worry – it’s just for a little while.” (END)

Egypt’s workers get little support from employers, or unions. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Oct 18 2012 (IPS)

Ahmed Hassanein works in a modern factory in an industrial enclave west of Cairo. He wears a neatly pressed uniform and operates precision calibrated machinery on a line that produces components for foreign-brand passenger vehicles.

When his shift ends, he returns home to a simple two-room flat with no air conditioning and sporadic water and electricity. The bedroom fits a bed and little else. His two children share a small cot in an alcove that was once a balcony.

Hassanein’s salary covers the rent, utility bills, and meals that occasionally include meat or fish. But even with the income his wife earns from a part-time clerical job, his family rarely has money left over at the end of the month.

The 37-year-old industrial worker is just one among countless Egyptians who toil in factories for meagre wages, unable to afford the products they help manufacture.

“My father had a Fiat, which I drove for a number of years until it gave out, but I’ve never bought my own car,” says Hassanein, who like most of his colleagues takes a bus to work.

Hassanein wasn’t born into poverty, he fell into it, along with millions of other middle-class Egyptian families pulled downwards by diminishing purchasing power.

In the four decades since former president Anwar El-Sadat announced his ‘Infitah’ (Open Door) economic policy, private capital has flooded into Egypt on the back of measures that promoted the country as an owner-friendly, low-wage investment destination. Firms enjoyed cheap land, tax holidays and subsidised energy while the state repressed union activity and eviscerated labour standards.

Political economist Amr Adly says market liberalisation and neoliberal economic policies were a boon for foreign corporations and wealthy Egyptians, but the resulting unemployment, corruption, and uneven distribution of wealth were primary factors behind the uprising last year that toppled president Hosni Mubarak.

“The economy was growing at seven or eight percent before the revolution, but there was no trickle down effect,” Adly told IPS. “Wages in many sectors lagged far behind inflation.”

Mubarak’s legacy is a country of 83 million people in which a quarter of the population lives below the UN-recognised poverty line of two dollars a day. About 13 percent of Egypt’s 26-million-strong workforce is officially unemployed, and many work in a huge parallel economy where job security is absent.

Wages here are among the lowest in the world. The national minimum wage was set at 700 Egyptian pounds (115 dollars) a month last year after stagnating at 35 Egyptian pounds (under six dollars at today’s rate) for over two decades.

“We want better pay, but every path is blocked,” says Hassanein. “In the end you take your salary and thank God that at least you have a job.”

Under Mubarak, workers were discouraged from unionising – or if they did, required to join one of 24 syndicates affiliated to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF). Activists say the colossal state-controlled labour organisation served the interests of the government and factory owners by blocking workers’ attempts to strike or engage in collective bargaining.

ETUF’s board was dissolved after the 2011 uprising, but many of its union heads, chosen in sham elections for their loyalty to Mubarak’s regime, are still in place. The federation’s 3.5 million members pay union dues, but receive few benefits or support in return.

When textile worker Kareem El-Beheiry joined a strike to demand better wages, it was his own trade union – in league with the publicly-owned factory’s manager – that tried to stop him.

“The state-backed unions have never respected the rights of workers,” says 27-year-old El-Beheiry, now a project manager at an NGO that helps workers unionise. “Workers are forced to pay syndicate dues every month, but the (official) unions are only interested in supporting the government and company management.”

El-Beheiry was among the 24,000 workers at a state-owned textile mill in the northern Egyptian town Mahalla El-Kubra who defied their official stooge union heads and went on strike in December 2006 over unpaid bonuses. The defiant act sparked a flurry of wildcat strikes now widely seen as a catalyst for the mass uprising that ended Mubarak’s rule.

The strike wave has continued to this day, encompassing every economic sector and region of the country. Last year saw a record 1,400 collective actions, according to Sons of the Land, a local human rights group.

One consequence of the labour unrest is that emboldened workers have increasingly challenged ETUF’s hegemony over trade union activities, organising themselves into independent syndicates that protect their interests, not the state’s. Workers managed to establish four independent trade unions before the 2011 uprising. More than 800 have been formed in the last 18 months, representing an estimated three million workers.

“We’re building independent and democratic unions that are accountable to workers and give them their rights,” says Kamal Abou Eita, president of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), an umbrella for hundreds of independent unions.

But analysts say the new regime, much like its predecessor, wants to keep workers contained and controlled.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which Egypt’s new president hails, has extensive business interests and a long history of anti-union activities. The group’s members in government have signalled a continuation of the old regime’s economic policies – which critics say come at the expense of labour wages and security.

“The Muslim Brotherhood doesn’t want strong unions,” asserts Hadeer Hassan, a local labour journalist. “They label striking workers as ‘thugs’ and want to prohibit union plurality.”

Egypt’s new labour minister, a prominent Brotherhood member and former ETUF deputy, has submitted a draft law that would require workers in each enterprise to select just one trade union to represent them. If passed, labour rights advocates say the legislation would eliminate most independent unions, which exist alongside their larger ETUF counterparts.

“Then we’re back to the way it was under Mubarak,” says Hassan.

Protests across Egypt have not brought a right to information. Credit: Khaled Moussa al-Omrani.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Jul 24 2012 (IPS)

During the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year rule, Egyptian protesters stormed state security headquarters in Cairo. Inside they discovered a trove of documents – including surveillance reports on activists, transcripts of telephone conversations, and intercepted emails – that revealed the meticulous records the state kept on the activities of its citizens.

By contrast, Egyptian citizens know very little about the activities of their own government. Successive regimes have prevented the public from obtaining documents and data that permit meaningful government accountability. Rights watchdogs say the secrecy fostered an atmosphere of corruption and impunity.

Public access to information would make the government more transparent, says Toby Mendel, executive director of the Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD). It is also a fundamental principle of democracy.

“Citizens elect the government with a mandate to serve their interest and operate using public money,” Mendel told IPS. “So the idea that the government owns information is inconsistent with what a government is supposed to do.”

The availing of information permits public engagement in the government process – everything from community planning to elections.

“For citizens to participate in the public decision-making process they must have access to the information on which these decisions are based,” Mendel explains. “If, for example, you want to build a road, you need to know where the road is going, the rationale for building it, and its cost/benefit analysis.”

At least 90 countries have enacted national legislation that establishes the right and procedures for the public to request and receive government-held information. In May 2011, Tunisia became the second Arab country after Jordan to adopt freedom of information legislation, fulfilling a promise of its provisional government to end the media silence and unaccountability of the former regime.

Following Mubarak’s downfall in February 2011, civil society pressed Egypt’s interim government to demonstrate a break from its authoritarian past by taking similar initiative.

A report by the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association (EARLA) released in April argues that a freedom of information law (FOIL) would enhance the transparency and accountability of Egypt’s new government. It could also stem the rampant corruption that debilitates the national economy and political system.

“Such laws provide citizens an opportunity to engage in oversight over their government officials to ensure the public treasury is spent towards the country rather than embezzled into officials’ private accounts. Similarly, businesses use FOIL to assure they have a fair opportunity to bid and receive government contracts based on quality and competency as opposed to nepotism and cronyism,” the report said.

Under Mubarak, the government suppressed attempts by rights groups to introduce bills to parliament that would open information channels or increase public oversight and accountability. After the uprising, however, the government sought loans from international donors to shore up the country’s battered economy. One of the conditions, sources say, was a tacit agreement to enact legislation that improves transparency.

The World Bank commissioned Mendel to draft a freedom of information law for the Egyptian government. But in June 2011, having revised its budget, Egypt’s military-run government declined a 3.2 billion dollar World Bank/IMF loan and shelved the bill.

“During that time, civil society took the draft I’d prepared, modified it, then presented it to parliament,” says Mendel. “The government also worked on the (original) draft and subsequently popped out its own bill.”

Legislators were debating the two draft laws when parliament was dissolved last month. Both bills share common articles, but differ in their disclosure procedures and list of exemptions.

The government draft law treats access to information as a privilege that is granted. It provides a mechanism for citizens to request information, but only requires state institutions to provide data “whenever its disclosure realises a legitimate interest.”

The civil society draft law goes further, enshrining access to information as a right. The bill obliges public bodies – and certain private institutions – to routinely publish details on their internal structure, activities and decisions.

Mendel says it was important for the drafts to establish an independent review body that ensures government compliance with the law. Citizens can appeal to the information commissioner – which may be an individual or a committee – if they believe a request for information is unfairly denied or delayed.

The information commissioner should also have the authority to determine whether the government has correctly classified information as an exclusion – a category by which the right to information can be denied. Many FOILs have stumbled on this point. India’s, for instance, excluded many state agencies and projects from disclosure obligations on the pretext of national security concerns.

Broad and vague exclusionary clauses make it easier for officials to conceal information that could expose mismanagement and corruption.

“A big sticking point for Egypt was the question of whether the military would be excluded (from the scope of the law),” says Mendel. “The military is reputed to control about 40 percent of the national economy, including state-owned enterprises and many regular businesses. Not bringing that massive operation under the law was unthinkable.”

According to historian and military analyst Robert Springborg, Egypt’s generals own land and run factories, draw freely from the state budget, and receive an annual 1.3 billion dollars in military assistance from Washington. Yet their holdings and expenditures are shielded from public scrutiny – reporting on them is a criminal offence.

“The military has access to public resources that are not accurately recorded in the state budget, and even the parliament doesn’t know how these funds are utilised,” says Springborg. “The generals can use the direct payments they receive from the treasury almost without any oversight or accountability.”

Rights advocates say the battle to make the military and other public agencies more accountable to the people goes beyond the drafting of freedom of information legislation. Egypt has a number of pre-existing laws that restrict access to government-held documents and data.

They say it is imperative that any new FOIL explicitly supersedes all previous laws, or that the right to information is enshrined in the new constitution, due to be drafted soon.

Behind the numbers at Tahrir Square it was the power of unions that pushed Mubarak out of power. Credit: Cam McGrath/IPS.

By Cam McGrath
CAIRO, Jul 13 2012 (IPS)

The independent trade unions that have sprung up across Egypt over the last 17 months face an uncertain future, caught between Islamists and the military and operating under labour laws that have not changed since Hosni Mubarak was in power.

“The government and business owners don’t want to respond to workers’ demands or give them rights, so they are opposed to seeing workers establish independent syndicates,” says Kamal Abu Eita, a leader of the independent union movement.

Under Mubarak, all unions were required to be part of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which propped up the regime by blocking any industrial action that would undermine the state’s authority or supply of cheap labour. Membership in the state-controlled body was mandatory for most public sector employees, and union dues were automatically deducted from their salaries.

Activists say the colossal labour organisation worked to prevent its four million members from holding strikes or negotiating for better salaries. It also mobilised large numbers of workers for pro-government rallies and bussed them to polling stations during general elections to vote for the ruling party.

“Successive regimes recognised the power of organised labour and used ETUF to control it,” Tamer Fathy, an expert on labour movements tells IPS. “It was basically an arm of the regime since its creation in 1957.”

Cracks first appeared in ETUF’s hegemony six years ago when factory workers in the northern industrial town Mahalla El-Kubra defied their stooge government union leaders and went on strike to demand unpaid bonuses. Their defiant action resonated with the exploited working class, igniting a wave of wildcat strikes that enveloped every economic sector – and has continued to this day.

The nascent labour movement provided fertile ground for the birth of Egypt’s first independent unions, but little nutrient to sustain them. The four unions that emerged while Mubarak was in power faced hostile workplaces, constant intimidation and harassment from ETUF, and a barrage of legal challenges.

The dictator’s downfall, however, gave union activists more room to operate. Workers have set up over 500 independent syndicates in recent months. The majority have affiliated with two autonomous labour bodies, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) led by Abu Eita, and the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) headed by former steel worker Kamal Abbas.

EFITU, formed just five days into the uprising against Mubarak, claims an affiliated membership of 281 independent unions comprising over two million workers. The younger EDLC covers about 250 independent unions. The pair, separated primarily by their policies of incorporation, has emerged to challenge the state-backed ETUF, which still claims nearly four million members.

Proposed legislation that would govern union organisation was under review in parliament before it was dissolved in June. Without it, independent syndicates continue to operate in a legal grey zone – hampered by Mubarak-era legislation that only recognises ETUF-affiliated unions.

“There is no existing law to govern independent unions, only a declaration of freedom of association issued in March 2011,” explains Nihal El-Banna of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers’ Services (CTUWS), a local labour rights group. “We still need a legal charter to define and organise independent unions – for instance, what they should look like, or the minimum number of members for them to be recognised.”

The absence of regulation has allowed hundreds of loosely-formed syndicates to spring up, though arguably only a handful are in a position to defend their independence.

Adel Zakaria, editor of Kalam Sinaiyyia (Workers’ Talk) magazine, says independent unions whose membership covers the majority of employees in their workplace or sector “have the muscle to get things done.” Smaller unions with shallow roots could be reabsorbed into the state-controlled federation.

ETUF is proving to be a multi-headed hydra. The mammoth organisation was weakened by rulings that dissolved its executive board, put its leadership under investigation for corruption, and pulled the plug on 15 million dollars in annual government subsidies. Yet its core remains intact.

The interim board appointed to administer ETUF is stacked with members of its old guard, while the federation continues to benefit from undemocratic systems set up by the former regime. One example of this – facilitated by state institutions – is mandatory membership dues.

Workers who join independent unions are obligated to pay ETUF dues, even if they cancel their membership.

“There’s really no way around it,” El-Banna tells IPS. “Many professions in Egypt require a licence, but when you go to renew it you must submit a document that proves you paid your annual (ETUF membership) dues. Without this, you can’t renew your licence.”

Many activists believe Egypt’s two main powers, the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, are trying to rebuild ETUF as a counterweight to newfound syndical liberties. They claim the generals – opposed to organised labour – have sought to contain worker movements by criminalising strikes and preserving Mubarak-era labour laws.

“The military would prefer a single, official trade union federation that the state can control,” says El-Banna.

Muslim Brotherhood leaders once supported trade syndicate pluralism, but now favour a model that prohibits workers from organising more than one union within any given enterprise. Legislators affiliated to the Islamic group have attempted to hijack the proposed Trade Union Liberties Law – originally intended to support independent unions – and transform it into a bill that bars union pluralism.

Setbacks in formulating progressive legislation could undermine the growth and legitimacy of independent unions. But defiant labour leaders point out that they did not wait for Mubarak’s permission to establish independent unions, and they have no intention of waiting for his successors to approve them.

If the life sentences for former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and one of his key allies were meant to placate Egyptians, they have had the opposite effect.

Shortly after the verdict, tens of thousands of Egyptians from across the politcal spectrum, with perhaps the exception of die-hard Mubarak supporters and supporters of presidential candidate and former Mubarak cabinet member Ahmed Shafik, filled the streets of Egyptian cities to voice their anger at the verdicts.

Northern cairo criminal court Judge Ahmed Refaat convicted Mubarak and Habib Al-Adly, the former head of Egypt’s interior ministry (MOI) merely of “failing to stop the killings.” Many Egyptians believe Mubarak and Al-Adly together with the state’s security services, were responsible for the killing of hundreds of protestors and the torture and detention of thousands more political detainees.

Senior members of the MOI, and commanders of the riot police who were seen firing on protestors from the tops of buildings surrounding Tahrir Square, were acquitted.

“We know that Mubarak and Al-Adly were not on the rooftops firing at protestors, yet somehow nobody is to blame for the shootings and killings despite forensic medical reports, witnesses, video footage and security log book evidence,” protest organiser Tarek El Halaby told IPS.

Within minutes of Saturday morning’s verdicts, clashes between protestors and riot police broke out near the court. Hundreds of Egyptians began filling downtown Cairo’sTahrir Square spontaneously, despite the blistering heat of the midday sun. By nightfall those hundreds had swelled into tens of thousands of chanting protestors, a scene repeated in cities and towns around Egypt.

This was the biggest turnout of protestors since the revolution. In scenes reminiscent of those heady and eventful days, young men began barricading Tahrir Square. All pedestrians who entered were searched and forced to show ID proof by revolutionary volunteers.

Protestors formed a human chain around Tahrir with secularists, Islamists, revolutionaries, football fans, Coptic Christians, young and old uniting in a show of solidarity. Many women were among the protesters.

The protests continued throughout the night, with hundreds settling in for what many see as a long battle ahead. Sunday morning traffic was again blocked by barricades as waves of protestors returned following a call by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) to its well organised supporters to take to the streets.

The mood on the streets is one of anger but also of defiance and determination, with the realisation that the revolution Egyptians have fought so hard for, and many have died for, could be slipping away.

“If we can keep this momentum until Jun. 6, and focus our message, we might succeed in getting Shafik disqualified. Step one,” said protestor Yasmine El-Rashidi.

This attitude of defiance is being echoed by other protestors who have called for a complete boycott of the run-off election due in mid-June. “The overwhelming majority of the Egyptian population will not take part in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ (SCAF) elections. Join us and boycott this farce,” twittered activist Tarek Shalaby.

Another activist, Mahmoud Salem, expressed disappointment over the revolution’s shortcomings and the inability of some revolutionaries to see through the game of the military to cling to power.

El-Halaby who lost several of his friends in a protest outside Abbasiya military headquarters in Cairo last month sees a bloody road ahead. Eleven people were killed in that protest. Several had their throats slit and others were gunned down by unidentified assailants believed to be associated with the military.

“We know the former regime will not give up without a bloody fight and we expect more bloodshed in the future. We know are prepared for this because we know our freedom will not come easily,” El-Halaby told IPS.

The explosive situation in the street and anger of the protestors is expected to escalate when an appeal by Mubarak and Al-Adly’s lawyers against their life sentences is filed. Many Egyptians, including lawyers for those killed in Tahrir last year as well as Mubarak and Adly’s lawyers believe the appeal will be successful.

But despite events signalling that Egypt’s revolution is far from over, Egyptians haven’t lost their sense of humour. A current joke circulating in Tahrir Square is that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad would happily give up power if he could be tried in an Egyptian court.