Cairo 20 January, 2019
Today, The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information – ANHRI launches its report on labor and social protests in 2018 entitled “What’s coming is more dangerous”. The report monitors the number of labor and social protests, methods of protest, locations, and the groups protesting..
The report presents the quantitative findings of monitoring 588 labor and social protests during 2018, divided into 200 labor protests and 388 social protests. The report details the reasons for such protests, their methods, the number of collective versus individual protests, as well as the geographical distribution of these protests nationwide.
According to the report, “What’s coming is more dangerous…” labor and professional protests took many forms, including 62 strikes, 44 vigils, 33 cases of threatening to protest, as well as 22 hunger strikes and 20 sit-ins throughout the year.
The report said that workers and professionals were not forced to commit suicide or threat to do so as a means of protest except twice, which is not the case with the social movements, in which committing suicide was of one of the forms of protest.
The report found that nearly 39% of the labor and professional protests were due to reasons not very common in the past, as this year’s protests included (exclusion from trade union elections, transfer, termination of assignment and change of job title) alongside other reasons for protest.
The report also found that the labor and professional protests took place in most of the cities of the country. Cairo came in first place with 53 protests, with a big difference of up to 36 protests between it and Al Gharbia which came in second place. The protests in Cairo were characterized by their collective nature and were carried out by government employees, as well as public and private sector employees from at least 15 sectors (Media, journalism, printing, publishing, public officials, health, contracting, building materials, transportation, lawyers, chemical industries, insurance, banks, etc.), respectively.
The report drew attention to the danger of sectarian tensions in Minya, and social protests led by Islamic extremists in protest against the construction of churches.
The report did not stop at the quantitative results of these protests, but goes to qualitative analysis of the data and the prospects and horizons of its development.
“Perseverance, despite repression, imprisonment, prosecution and harsh sentences against protesters, is the impression of anyone following-up the labor and social movement in 2018,” said the researchers of ANHRI’s Freedom of Expression for Workers and Social Movements Program.
The researchers added that “the movement of workers and professionals has seen remarkable activity during this year even if its features have not crystallized yet, this year has witnessed a number of protest movements, and attempts to pave a way out of the crises experienced by the movement. These movements attempt to achieve change through democratic methods by seizing the right of having a legal personality for the trade union committees, and the attempt to establish independent unions that honestly express the aspirations and concerns of workers.”
“What’s coming is more dangerous… Labor and Social Protests in 2018” relies on field monitoring of the Freedom of Expression for Workers and Social movements program, labor cases taken by the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, in addition to several printed newspapers and news websites such as (Al Watan, Al Masry Al Youm, Al Wafd, Masrawy, Al Bawaba News, Al Fajr, Al Youm 7, etc.) covering the period from 1 January 2018 until 15 December 2018.
Click here to read or download the full report
What’s coming is more dangerous… Labor and Social protests in 2018
What’s coming is more dangerous…Labor and Social protests in 2018 pdf
What’s coming is more dangerous…Labor and Social protests in 2018 word
