Solidarity with the Egyptian and Tunisian workers and youth

 

Egyptian workers form new unionThe TUC has received a press release from the independent trade union organisation CTUWS, whose website has been blocked by the Egyptian government as part of the repression of dissent in Egypt, annopuncing the formation of a new, independent trade union movement.http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-19067-f0.cfm

Solidarity with Egyptian workers
Formation of new union movement
30 January 2011
Egyptian workers form new union

The TUC has received the following press release from the independent trade union organisation CTUWS, whose website has been blocked by the Egyptian government as part of the repression of dissent in Egypt.

Press Release
Date: Sunday, 30 January 2011
Today, representatives of the Egyptian labor movement, made up of the independent Egyptian trade unions of workers in real estate tax collection, the retirees, the technical health professionals and representatives of the important industrial areas in Egypt: Helwan, Mahalla al-Kubra, the tenth of Ramadan city, Sadat City and workers from the various industrial and economic sectors such as: garment & textiles, metals industry, pharmaceuticals, chemical industry, government employees, iron and steel, automotive, etc... agreed to hold a press conference at 3:30pm this afternoon in Tahrir Square next to Omar Effendi Company store in downtown Cairo to announce the organization of the new Federation of Egyptian Trade Unions and to announce the formation of committees in all factories and enterprises to protect, defend them and to set a date for a general strike. And to emphasize that the labor movement is in the heart and soul of the Egyptian Peoples' revolution and its emphasis on the support for the six requirements as demanded by the Egyptian People's Revolution. To emphasize the economic and democratic demands voiced by the independent labor movement through thousands of strikes, sit-ins and protests by Egyptian workers in the past years.
Translation of original in Arabic into English

ITUC statement here: http://www.ituc-csi.org/egypt-ituc-condemns-police.html

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1983

In Tunisia and Egypt the revolutions are underway

Statement by the Bureau of the Fourth International
Fourth International

“The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business - kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena,(...). The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.”

Leon Trotsky, Preface to History of the Russian Revolution