The differing natures of the Egyptian and Tunisian labour movements simultaneously contributed to the different outcomes of their 2011 revolutions and are indicative of the societies those labour movements and revolutions came out of, thus helping to explain their divergent outcomes.

The Egyptian Trade Union Federation was founded in 1957, and became the only legal trade union, under Nasser’s state. The basis of this was the provision of job security and other economic benefits like a share in the net profit and social welfare programmes in exchange for political quietism and subordination, in order to maintain state control over the labour movement.

This social contract broke down from the 80’s onwards as the ETUF maintained a monopoly over worker’s representation while retracting the benefits, the latter of which was part of a larger liberalizing trend in the region.

Economic Reform and Structural Adjustment Plans (ERSAP) and agreements with the US, EU, WTO, IMF, and the World Bank within the region from the 1980s onwards included lowering custom tariffs and taxes on imports; opening up markets to foreign investments in telecommunication, the financial sector, transport, and energy; privatizing public sector companies and deregulating the labour market (lowering minimum wages, ending severance pay, making hiring and firing more flexible); and liberalizing real estate. These measures aimed to transform the state-led import substitution economies of the 1960s into export-oriented economies based on private foreign and local investment and deregularized cheap labour. ¹

In contrast, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT, its French acronym) was founded in 1946, 10 years before Tunisia’s independence, took part in the independence of Tunisia, and thus was afforded a certain level of autonomy. It went through periods of collaboration and antagonism with the state, with the rank and file sometimes successfully pulling it in the direction of militancy.

This in turn guaranteed it a certain level of autonomy in the following authoritarian rule of Tunisia’s first president Habib Bourguiba, who was reliant on the UGTT to consolidate regime legitimacy. Under Bourguiba, the union was inconsistent in its cooperation or confrontation with the regime. The 1960s saw a period of relative stability and collaboration, yet throughout the 1970s – most notably the 1978 general strike – and 1980s the union militantly opposed attempts to implement IMF-back neoliberal economic reforms. This became a distinctive feature of the UGTT, that unlike other trade unions in the Arab world it never fully integrated into the state apparatus. Instead, it maintained two duel – albeit ambiguous – positions: a bureaucracy and leadership that was most often complicit with the state, but more significantly, a tendency to fall on the side of the workers and activists when attempts to resist the ruling power put pressure on the union leadership in times of crisis. ²

There were dissidents in both the ETUF and the UGTT, but the Tunisian ones are predicably stronger.

Despite the subordination of the ETUF to the state, the 2000s saw increased militancy from Egyptian workers outside the confines of the federation as a result of reforms like law 203 (accepted by the ETUF) in 1991, which put 314 public enterprises for sale. By 1999, 137 were sold. The ETUF further discredited itself by the acceptance of labour law 12 of 2003, “which replaced previous fixed contracts with flexible, temporary contracts”. ¹

With this in the background, December 2006 was a significant juncture, where workers at the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company (employing 25k) went on strike prompted by a pay dispute, “when, for the first time since the social contract [of 1957], the strike became the main instrument of resistance in Egypt.” ¹ Workers demanded the impeachment of local union officials. ³ This was followed by a subsequent phase of labour struggle where strikes were more frequent, longer in duration, and more widespread. As time went on, and demands were refused, demands that were originally just economic (increasing minimum wage) became more political, focused on the general economic policy of the government and boycotting the ETUF in favour of organizing independent trade unions. In 2009, tax officials left the ETUF to form their own union, and were followed in 2010 by public transport workers, teachers, and health technicians as well as pensioners. In Tunisia, the UGTT “maintained an ‘unstable cohabitation between a neutralized leadership and an uncontrolled base’”. ¹ While many of the higher bureaucracy were coopted by the state, the regional and local cadres were more radical and connected to the rank and file. This is best seen during the Gafsa rebellion in 2008, a declining phosphate mining area in the interior of the country. The Gafsa Mining Company, the main employer in the area, had been firing many workers over the years with unemployment reaching 20-39% and 40% of people below the poverty line. Sit-ins, demonstrations, marches, and clashes lasted for six months.

This rebellion failed, but the union activists had learned from the mistake of remaining isolated in 2008, so that when Mohamed Bouazizi immolated himself on December 17 2010, union members immediately organized support demonstrations after uprisings in sidi Bouzid where Bouazizi lived. A lawyers sit-in on December 25, a lawyers general strike on January 6, and a general strike on January 14 which brought down ben-ali.

This is in contrast with the ETUF, which sided with Mubarak and not the protests against him. The independent trade unions in Egypt formed the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), and in march of 2011 demanded the dissolution of the ETUF. A rival independent union federation, the Democratic Labour Congress, also formed.

Once Mubarak was gone the subsequent rulers were no friends to labour. The supreme council of the armed forces (SCAF), ruling from feb 2011 to June 2012, and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) did not pass new trade union laws. The SCAF criminalized protests that disrupted work. The military government that took over after Morsi in July 2013 was ousted made involvement in strikes something you could be imprisoned for.

Morsi’s government tried to use the same corporatist methods of controlling labour. The minister of manpower was an FJP member (in a cabinet where few were FJP members, emphasizing the importance Morsi put on controlling labour) and FJP members were added to the ETUF board (which under Morsi’s decree no. 97, are appointed by the minister of manpower. The same decree forced those over 60, remnants of the Mubarak regime, to be removed). They were ousted after Morsi was. In addition:

Also, the FJP put forward a draft law on labor unions that would have prohibited the establishment of new professional unions, preserved the structure of centralized decision-making within the ETUF, and made it difficult for workers to leave the ETUF without risking losing their access to social funds. The close connection between ETUF membership and access to these funds poses significant obstacles for the emergence of independent unions. ⁴

In Tunisia, independent trade union federations were formed after Ben-ali fell, often with former UGTT members as founders, and with criticisms of the UGTT, such as claims of corruption. The UGTT was not severely challenged by these independent trade unions the way the ETUF was. In addition to superior financial resources and larger membership, its history of relative independence gave it greater credibility than the ETUF. After Ben-ali, new union federations were legalized, but, as before, only the UGTT could participate in tripartite negotiations. (In Egypt no regular practice of tripartite negotiations exist.)

The UGTT also played a mediating role, to try and mitigate the political crises after ben-ali’s ouster. It is able to take on this role because of it’s political clout, organizational strength, and history of militancy. That last factor is in part because the lack of political pluralism in the past has led to activists relying on the UGTT as a vehicle for human rights and general freedom struggles, making the UGTT a sort of umbrella organization.

The UGTT’s role as a mediator sometimes led to them deprioritizing labour struggles, such as in November of 2013 when negotiations by workers on temporary contracts demanding permanent contracts were delayed because UGTT central leadership was not able to attend the negotiations. It’s role as mediator has also mitigated internal reforms over issues such as “internal corruption, the underrepresentation of women in the organization’s leadership positions, issues of internal democracy, and membership expansion.” ⁴

It is noteworthy that the islamist party, Ennhada, often had an antagonistic relationship with the UGTT, warning that the UGTT would become partisan players by siding with leftist political parties, and criticizing it for its reliance on street mobilization for pressuring the government.

In Tunisia, for various reasons, the democratic revolution was not undone, even after the political deadlock that took place after the Ennhada party formed government in 2011, which was succeeded by a caretaker government taking over in 2013 until new elections were held in 2014, when Ennhada joined the opposition. As mentioned before, this was partly because the UGTT played the role of mediator (along with other civil society organizations, the Tunisian Association of Human Rights, the Lawyers’ Association, and the Tunisian Union of Industry, Commerce, and Traditional Crafts.)

The political deadlock in Egypt, on the other hand, led to a military coup and the return of military dictatorship. As for what this meant for labour, “By 2013 a total of 1,000 independent trade unions had sprung up. In 2012 3,817 labour incidents were reported, a fourfold increase since 2007.” ¹ In addition:

In Egypt, all independent unions were dissolved in March 2018 and given 60 days to reregister their organisation based on new arbitrary requirements established in Law no. 213/2017 on Trade Unions. Out of 1,000 independent unions, only 122 were able to successfully register their status under the new law and within the timeframe. ⁵

References

1. The Workers’ Movement and the Arab Uprisings by Roel Meijer https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-social-history/article/workers-movement-and-the-arab-uprisings/CFBEB439E80019587E8022B7C2471F43#fn53

2. Labour organisation in the Arab Spring: A comparison of Tunisia and Egypt by Amie Churchill https://www.sciencespo.fr/kuwait-program/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/KSP_Paper_Award_Fall_2016_CHURCHILL_Amie.pdf

3. Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order by Joel Beinin, Hossam El-Hamalawy https://merip.org/2007/03/egyptian-textile-workers-confront-the-new-economic-order/

4. Labor Movements in Tunisia and Egypt Drivers vs. Objects of Change in Transition from Authoritarian Rule by Dina Bishara https://www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/comments/2014C01_bishara.pdf

5. 2019 ITUC Global Rights Index https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/2019-06-ituc-global-rights-index-2019-report-en-2.pdf