CAIRO — Do you think workers in Egypt will ever have the right to strike? Have you ever had a period in the United States when there were so many strikes? Are workers in the U.S. able to join unions? Do U.S. workers have rights and how do those rights compare to those of workers in Egypt? Do you think our workers will ever be able to have real unions?

I was visiting a class for young journalists at American University in Cairo being taught by long-time Chicago Tribune labor reporter and Mideast correspondent Steve Franklin. The media had been caught by surprise last fall when a series of strikes by factory workers began sweeping the country.

For a few years after WWII, union activity was on the upswing in Egypt, but since the revolution in 1952, workers’ rights have been suppressed alternately by left-wing and right-wing governments. Now there’s just a single, government controlled union for blue collar workers in Egypt — the Egypt Trade Union Federation — which all government and public sector workers are forced to join. Public sector workers have a limited right to strike; unions are illegal for private sector workers and they have no right to strike. When work stoppages began to roll across Egypt for the first time in decades, reporters were baffled at how to cover them, and with more strikes developing, AUC asked Franklin to ramp up a series of workshops.

It was ironic that even as we were starting our discussion, the Employee Free Choice Act was being passed by a 51-48 vote in the United States Senate, not enough to survive a filibuster and far short of the 66 votes need to overcome a presidential veto. It granted me a natural opening to explain to the journalists that while workers’ rights in Egypt are suppressed by law, workers rights in the U.S. are suppressed by practice (what the legal eggheads call de facto suppression).

The right to join unions?

We have legal, independent unions in the U.S. and workers are supposedly free to form or join unions, but when they decide to do so their employers flaunt the law and defeat them by threatening, coercing, intimidating and firing union supporters. Our government refuses to enforce the laws we have protecting workers’ rights, and even when they do the penalties are too light to dissuade the employers.

The right to strike?

Yes, we have the right. But employers are free to break the law in order to break strikes, and to permanently replace workers who do go on strike. The result is that we haven’t had a real “wave” of strikes since (coincidentally) just after World War II. And the number of strikes in the U.S. has steadily declined over the years.

Workers’ rights?

From the mild reaction to the strikes here in Egypt, it seems your government may be determined to “bend instead of break” when it comes to workers’ rights and unions. Our government in the states, on the other hand, seems to be determined to continue oppressing workers. The only way we can change that is to change governments, which we intend to do in 2008. Workers’ rights in your country as well as workers’ rights in our country depend very much on the freedom to form and join real unions and the right to strike. Without those rights, workers’ rights are not possible.

Having sufficiently embarrassed me on the subject of workers’ rights in developing countries versus workers’ right in the U.S., my good-natured inquisitors turned to even loftier questions.

Were middle eastern people living in the United States discriminated against after 9/11? Certainly, and sometimes outrageously, but no internment camps were opened up.

Is it fair to lump all people from all middle eastern countries together when it comes to questions of terrorism?

No, but it’s what’s happening.

Is it appropriate for a writer such as yourself to try and learn about Moslem culture and custom in distant countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan by visiting Egypt?

No, but it’s the only trip I was invited to take or could afford.

An appropriate coda to the student workshop was provided the next morning when Steve and I learned that 25,000 Egyptian school teachers had been walking (out on strike) while we were talking.

Note: a version of this report was published earlier by the AFL-CIO news blog.

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