Egypt faces third revolution unless workers' demands are met, warns union

Efitu leader and other activists claim government bluff over devalued wage rise as new revolutionary front is organised

Patrick Kingsley in Cairo

The Guardian, Wednesday 25 September 2013

"Egypt may eventually face its third revolution since 2011 if the country's new government does not meet the demands of its frustrated labour movement, a leading trade unionist has warned.

Egypt's prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, recently proposed a minimum wage increase for state employees, in what was supposed to be a populist gesture.
But the leader of the Egyptian federation of independent trade unions (Efitu), a group founded during the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak, has denounced the move as too little too late.......

Other activists fear the wage proposal is a bluff aimed at placating the powerful labour movement for a few months and until the government has finished suppressing Morsi's Islamist loyalists.
"It's just to postpone the fight with the workers till January," said Hossam el-Hamalawy, a prominent labour activist and revolutionary. "During that time they will have killed off the so-called terrorists, and then they can turn their full attention to the workers."
Egypt's labour movement was one of the main forces behind the 2011 uprising that ousted Mubarak, while their prolific strikes helped destabilise Mohamed Morsi during the final months of his presidency.
Hamalawy argued that Morsi's army-backed successors fear the movement could have a similar effect on their own administration, particularly after the strikes and sit-ins in Suez and Mahalla this summer.
"The labour movement is the biggest threat to any government," he said. "It's not armed groups that break down a regime but mass strikes.".......

But activists opposed to the authoritarianism of both the Brotherhood and the army are beginning to re-emerge, as Monday's formation of a new revolutionary group indicated.
Some of the most prominent names from the 2011 uprising – including Ahdaf Soueif, Ahmed Maher, and Alaa Abdel Fatah – congregated to introduce the movement, the Road of the Revolutionary Front.
"The revolution's goals are being forgotten and hence there is a need for this front," said Maher at the meeting......."