Frederick Douglass

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them..." Frederick Douglass

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Has the Revolution Left Egypt's Workers Behind?

And this from Time no less.

No one in Zagazig wants to talk about what happened last week. The hundreds of railway workers who maintain the old, trash-ridden tracks and trains in this Nile Delta town whisper hurriedly about a strike that briefly disrupted rail traffic across the country of 80 million. But the workers won't give their names or discuss it at length for fear of retribution from the soldiers and security forces that so swiftly put an end to it. And the man they point to as their labor leader says nervously that he knows nothing about a strike.

But maybe it's better that way, say some Egyptians — particularly political leaders and the railway's managers. "We're against stopping business like this, because we're trying to get stability back," says Mansour al-Shitry, an accountant for the state-run railways. "Of course the government can't meet the demands of all the people at once, and we don't want to give the military council more of a burden than they already have."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2079605,00.html#ixzz1QOQP5TLk