Public Workers’ Mobilizations in Egypt: Perceptions of Sector Potential in Textile and Transport

Abstract

This article contributes to explaining the rise of labor unrest in Egypt in the early 2000s, led initially by public-sector workers. Using two case studies in textile and transport, the author shows that perceptions of sector potential affected workers’ ability to protest and compensated for the decline in their sectors’ roles in the economy. The perceptions of underutilization due to corruption and to sector viability based on squandered profits help explain workers’ militancy and capacities to mount an extended protest campaign. These perceptions build on discourses that critique the state’s adoption of neoliberal policies associated with privatization. Workers could develop these perceptions because their sectors still played a role in the economy despite their decline. The analysis contributes to the Power Resource Approach by showing how perceptions of sector potential enhance capacities among Global South workers in declining sectors. To explain labor unrest, the author engages labor scholarship on Egypt that focuses on grievances rather than on workers’ economic position and sources of power.