Hind Abdel Gawad, a trade unionist and revolutionary activist from Zagazig in Sharqiyya province, Egypt, talks about the challenges facing the workers’ movement in Egypt in a video message for Manchester TUC’s May Day rally, 4 May 2013.
Hind, who played a leading role in strikes by Information Centre workers before the revolution, visited London and Manchester in November 2012 to speak at the Unite the Resistance conference.
She describes the recent wave of attacks on workers’ strikes by the police and army, including the assault on striking workers at Portland Cement in Alexandria by police dogs, and the attempt by the army to conscript striking railworkers, but also relates how solidarity and organisation is building a stronger workers’ movement to lead the resistance. “Workers are bigger and stronger than the attacks of the regime,” she concludes.
What you can do
- Send a message of solidarity to striking workers in Egypt via the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU) efitu.union@hotmail.com, copies to menasolidarity@gmail.com
- Send a message of protest to Ideal Standard via ukcustcare@idealstandard.com demanding the immediate reinstatement of the victimised union committee in the Tenth of Ramadan factory. Read more here about the Ideal Standard workers’ struggle for justice.
- Send a letter of protest to the Egyptian authorities calling on them to respect workers’ rights to organise and strike, and condemning the Egyptian army’s recent intervention in the rail and port workers’ strikes.
- Invite a speaker from MENA Solidarity Network to your union branch meeting. MENA Solidarity has organised three delegations of UK and Irish trade unionists to Egypt since the revolution, most recently at the beginning of November 2012 (menasolidarity@gmail.com)
- Download a leaflet for your May Day events and union meetings: mayday_leaflet_egy2013
