An association of the keyboard

In July 1986, during the famous train drivers’ strike, railway workers had an association to defend their interests, the Association of Railway Drivers and Assistants, in addition to their trade union, the General Union of Egyptian Railway Workers (GURW). Two organizations thus coexisted in the same public service, each seeking to represent the workers and demand their rights as it saw fit, and perhaps in line with its own interests.

When the railway drivers and assistants felt that the trade union was not taking up their demands, most notably the “clean kilometer incentive,” which had been frozen for so long that it had become worthless, the association took action. It began by petitioning officials to press the workers’ demands, then followed with a succession of calls and appeals aimed at securing a meeting with the transport minister, who dragged his feet in responding; the association had no choice but to call a strike that paralyzed the railways in Egypt.

An association leading the workers

Drivers and their assistants held a sit-in at the association’s headquarters, which security forces raided at dawn, arresting everyone inside and ending the strike by force before putting the workers on trial.

Yet this dramatic end to the strike did not prevent its demands from being met, so as to head off renewed protest. The surprise was the landmark ruling acquitting all the workers on the basis of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Egypt had signed and which had become binding upon it. Since then, peaceful strikes in defense of workers’ collective interests have been a legal right, recognized by subsequent labor laws even if these sought to hedge it with conditions.

What concerns us here is the question of legitimacy. The railway workers were organized in a trade union established under a 1964 law that regulates its organizational structure and whose board is elected, which made it the legitimate representative of all railway workers.

At the same time, the drivers and their assistants used an association (whose founding dates back to 1935) to improve their conditions and provide certain services. The association was also registered under the law with the Ministry of Social Affairs.

That is, we are dealing with two organizations, each with its own legitimacy, jurisdiction and scope of activity. When the workers tried to secure their rights through the trade union and it did not come to their aid, the association, which had won the trust of its rank and file, took action. The workers began responding to its directives, and the association thus earned the form of legitimacy that matters most in representative institutions.

The Journalists Syndicate crisis

The Journalists Syndicate is nothing like the GURW: the former is a professional syndicate, the latter a trade union, each with its own law, scope of activity and rules.

It also differs from other professional syndicates, such as those for engineers, doctors, lawyers, and the commercial professions, in admitting members based on actual practice rather than academic qualification. Anyone actively practicing the profession is eligible, regardless of whether they hold a journalism degree or any other university qualification.

The syndicate thus appears flexible in admitting members, but its membership conditions are highly inflexible. The first requirement is a lawful employment contract, with social insurance coverage, as a journalist at a newspaper licensed by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation. That is, a journalist’s membership remains contingent on something outside their control: their newspaper obtaining a license.

This takes syndicate activity completely outside the domain of true union practice. Subjecting a journalist’s membership to the will of an employer who holds hiring power inevitably carries over into the nature of the syndicate itself and its capacity to represent its members before that employer, namely, negotiating on their behalf, making demands in their name, and defending them.

This distortion in the membership conditions is reflected in the syndicate’s numbers. According to social services statistics issued by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, the Journalists Syndicate had fewer than 12,000 members in 2023, against 800,000 for the Engineers Syndicate, 284,000 for doctors and 380,000 for lawyers, and 1.8 million for the commercial professions.

Although the number of practicing journalists is naturally smaller than in other fields, what is different here is that the Journalists Syndicate’s membership figures, unlike those of every other syndicate, do not reflect the number of people who practice the profession: many are shut out of membership by the unjustified conditions for joining.

The crisis is clear: the umbrella of the Journalists Syndicate does not cover everyone who practices the profession, and these people have the right to demand a protective umbrella, whether a syndicate or otherwise.

A question that may seem puzzling to those looking in from the outside is this: is broadening the syndicate’s membership such a dilemma, and what harm would new members do to the syndicate? 

The answer has two parts. The first is the syndicate’s law, which dates from the pre-digital media era. It must be amended to suit the realities of the age and also to end employers’ control over syndicate membership.

The second part is financial: the technology and training allowance that the Ministry of Finance allocates monthly to each journalist who is a syndicate member. Any increase in membership means an increase in the burden on the state budget, which may stall disbursement of the allowance and, in the best case, slow its increase until it shrinks under waves of inflation.

Thus the problems of broadening the Journalists Syndicate’s membership and extending its umbrella to everyone who practices the profession do not appear simple, and the decision on some of them rests with bodies entirely outside the syndicate.

Organizing the stakeholders

But why start from such a distant point, with the syndicate’s law and the technology allowance? That approach mostly suits those seeking to use the issues of journalists outside the syndicate in electoral battles or political rivalries. In my view, answering how to organize journalists not covered by the syndicate’s umbrella must begin, first and foremost, with the journalists themselves.

Trade union organization is not tied to any one structure. The foundation of union work is people with a shared interest coming together in a complementary relationship, dividing roles among themselves, each playing their part to achieve the collective interest. It really is that simple, as the railway drivers and assistants understood. They achieved their demands through their strike and even changed the criminal law banning strikes. And here we must pause at an important observation: it was the railway strike that changed the articles of the law, not the reverse.

By the same logic, digital media journalists, whether syndicate members or not, have the right to organize along union lines in an association, a division, a family or any grouping. They should do so not against the syndicate, not alongside it, but in it, through it and in support of it, by virtue of their presence as a clearly defined bloc with shared interests. Let this be a first step towards resolving a crisis bandied about in the service of narrow interests.

Viewing the organization of digital media journalists, or any other category, as something that weakens the syndicate misinterprets the nature of union work. Broadening membership by taking in new sectors in fact strengthens the syndicate, reinforcing its role and protecting its standing. By contrast, keeping any group of practitioners out reduces its vital constituency and opens the door to alternatives that only create unnecessary conflict.

Forming an organizational structure that brings together digital media journalists, members and non-members of the syndicate, is a necessity. It gathers those with standing and an interest so that they can defend their shared interests, and so that those who step forward to support and back them are those who truly want to support and back them, rather than trading on their plight.