Bending Over Broken Backs
Assem Heiba
Economics Junior
By the time I hop on the bus every morning at 7:50 am, most of my fellow commuters would have been on board for about 40 minutes. Lugging worn-out shovels and dressed as lightly as possible, these commuters are on their second or third public transportation vehicle of the day, since they mainly hail from the outskirts of Cairo.
I don’t mind standing for the commute to AUC, but surely it is more tiring still for those who have been standing packed like sardines since the beginning of the route.
And when they finally do exit this bus, it will only be to take yet another one in order to reach their destination.
These commuters are day laborers and earn a living toiling in the remote New Cairo – what has now become a thriving center of real-estate development and big-money construction projects.
These workers have no job security and often work on makeshift scaffolding without helmets, boots or gloves.
So if one of them were to become injured while perched on the balcony of a five-bedroom villa, for example, the firm would simply look to replace them and hire someone else the following day.
The firm would not be obligated to care for them or the needy family for which they can no longer provide.
In sweltering heat and blistering cold, these laborers work long hours without being provided with food and drink.
On the bus, this is easy to notice because they each carry a small plastic bag filled with some vegetables or maybe a few baked goods.
The black-clad young man who offered his breakfast croissant – and a smile – to the bus conductor a few days ago displayed a touching level of generosity that would put many of us to shame.
In graciously offering that croissant, one of the few things he was carrying, the young man gave up a much larger percentage of his daily income than his employers would have, had they provided him and his fellow workers with basic needs like food and water.
The large corporations and the billionaires that run them can sell brand-new houses to well-to-do Egyptians for millions of pounds but at the same time fail to provide those who actually build these houses with basic services such as food, drink, protection and transportation.
It is disappointing that no government authority has taken concrete action to protect these workers, from such obvious infringements upon their rights as both laborers and humans.
National legislation as per the labor law no. 12 of 2003 constitutionally enshrines the protection of workers’ rights. Article 13 of the 2014 Egyptian constitution pledges to “work on protecting workers against the risks of work and ensure that conditions for professional security safety and health are met”.
But just this January, three construction workers in Alexandria died after the scaffolding upon which they were working came undone: they fell to their death from the tenth story of the building they were working on.
The government has a long way to go before it comes close to making good on that crucial pledge.
It is ironic, then, that these firms use the underprivileged to build new houses for the privileged and affluent of society – further exacerbating inequality in a country that is in dire need of a reassessment of its priorities.
