LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
LabourStart is the news and campaigning website of the international trade union movement.
Founded in 1998, we are the web's best source of trade union news, uploaded by our volunteers in dozens of languages. Our online campaigns, offered free of charge to trade unions, often help win victories for workers around the world. And from time to time, we hold Global Solidarity Conferences in different cities.
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LabourStart: Where trade unionists start their day on the net.
Interview with Ahmad Badawy, Egyptian trade union activist
The textile workers at Egypt's state-owned Mahalla factory have a history they can be proud of -- their strikes helped to bring down the Mubarak dictatorship. In March 2024, when the Egyptian government decided to exclude them from a minimum wage equal to US $120 (per month - before taxes), they rose up in protest, led by women workers. Having won some of their demands, they returned to work -- but two of the activists remain in the hands of the state security services. At the request of the Center for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS) LabourStart launched a campaign in support of these workers -- you can sign up here. This week we talked with Ahmad Badawy, an Egyptian trade union activist, who explained what happened -- and who tells us the kind of support the courageous women workers of Mahalla need today from the international labour movement.
