Workers against the state: Actors, issues and outcomes in Egyptian labor/state relations, 1952-1987

Abstract

Rejecting pessimistic theories that Third World states can render labor movements impotent via corporatist controls and repression, this study affirms that regulation of union behavior and suppression of labor protest shape, but do not eliminate, workers\u27 struggles. However, patterns of power between labor and state actors, measured by the outcome of these struggles, vary across issues. Using Egypt as an example, this study suggests that unity and cohesion among labor actors, combined with disunity on the part of the state, are key to successful outcomes for labor, and seeks to determine which particular issues are most likely to produce this configuration. Conflicts between labor and state actors were identified by extensive archival research and interviews with present and former union leaders, labor activists, and ordinary workers. Legal/structural issues, analyzed in Part I, are found to have a separate dynamic from economic ones; they are more likely to pit trade union leaders against each other in power disputes, while ordinary workers remain uninvolved. State agencies can take advantage of such competition among the union elite to increase governmental interference in union affairs and foster rival associations to organize workers. Part II covers economic issues. State ownership of large-scale industry, a system which gives considerable leeway to individual parastatal managers, and neglect of workers\u27 concerns by senior union leaders causes battles around wages and working conditions to erupt primarily at single state-owned plants rather than the industrial or national level. Workers\u27 protests, generally defensive, largely spontaneous, and often symbolic, have met repression combined with concession. National economic reform issues such as privatization and subsidy removal do elicit strong and unified opposition from the union movement, and greater concessions from the state. Egyptian workers\u27 defiance of repression appear motivated by outrage at perceived governmental infractions of an implicit social contract. At the same time, Egyptian leaders exhibit a comparative hesitancy to repress workers in order to implement reforms. This combination makes rapid economic liberalization unlikely in Egypt. Gradual privatization may nevertheless make workers feel more need for union protection and thereby more concerned with organizational affairs, slowly increasing pressures for union reform