The Mahalla Strike: We Stand With You

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

The strike that Mahalla workers started on Sunday evening, which has gained momentum today, Monday, is not just another labor protest over the legally mandated bonuses and incentives management is trying to avoid paying.
With soaring inflation affecting every salaried worker and the poor across Egypt, and with no natural way to deal with the crushing crisis—whether by cutting necessary household expenses or working multiple jobs just to meet basic needs—the Mahalla workers are showing all of Egypt’s workers the only path forward to confront rising prices and poverty.

The Mahalla workers are demanding the legally approved social bonus, the cost-of-living allowance, the incorporation of the 220-pound incentive into their basic pay, and an increase in the meal allowance to 300 pounds—all while facing threats from management and reports of “blacklists” targeting those accused of organizing the strike.

Today, the Mahalla workers are striking for wage increases that may not even begin to close the massive gap between wages and living costs, but they are offering the only natural way to resist.
The counter-revolutionary regime’s impoverishment policies—taxing the poor while reducing taxes for the wealthy, denying workers their most basic rights, and granting privileges to investors—have also drastically increased the cost of services like electricity, water, transportation, gas, and communications. These policies have wiped out any hope for people experiencing poverty and even the middle class to live a dignified life that meets basic needs. Such policies could only be imposed in an environment of passivity and suppression, which the forces of repression and authoritarianism have imposed on the labor movement.

Looking at the history of Egypt’s labor movement, it’s clear that whenever workers rise and resist, the authorities and business owners are forced to make concessions. The most significant social bonus ever granted to Egyptian workers was in 2008, the year of the Mahalla workers’ uprising, which was preceded by strikes and labor protests across many governorates. Likewise, the counter-revolutionary government in 2013 only implemented the minimum wage—though it fell far short of workers’ expectations—after being pressured by a wave of massive strikes that forced the authorities to address the unrest.

The only way to confront impoverishment and the terrifying rise in prices is precisely what the Mahalla workers are doing today: standing together and demanding their rights. The more Egypt’s working class and poor unite around their demands, the better chance they have of stopping these unbearable policies of impoverishment and repression.

The Mahalla workers, who inspired Egypt’s workers back in December 2006, launching the most significant wave of labor protests in the country’s history, and who, in September 2007, stood firm for an entire week, defying all threats until management finally gave in to their demands; the same workers who raised the banner of a minimum wage during their massive February 2008 demonstration, a banner that united the working class, and who rose again in April 2008, teaching the first lesson in standing up to dictatorship and oppression—these are the same workers who are once again leading by example for Egypt’s entire working class and for all people experiencing poverty who are crushed by impoverishment policies. The banner the Mahalla workers hold high today will only stay raised if every hand reaches out to help lift it with them.

Long live the struggle of the Mahalla workers
Long live the struggle of the working class