Great Expectorations

I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Something was definitely missing. I'd like to say that when the realisation dawned, that it hit between the eyes like an inspirational thunderbolt. But that would be a lie. It reminded me more of the soporific torpor which accompanied that evening in Blackpool I spent trailing a fora of inspired hemlock-fuelled gasconades in togas clutching their ninety pence return tickets for a one-way rodomontade along the seafront. You know the feeling... it's a growing panic and it's nothing short of corporeal dissolution. And it's being played out merrily at some amplitude along the full length of your pyloric canal by a Gdansk shipyard full of militant Venusian gondoliers on reduced pay over the bank holiday. You make a mental note to avoid any further eventful evenings on the local park bench with several comrades of the road and several three litre bottles of White Lightning. The alcohol-fuelled paranoia inevitably accompanied the delirium tremens which together belied the voluminous evidence that suggested I'd taken positive measures to improve my skills in mathematics which at this juncture was of no real utility. With a profound sense of sorrow I decided to put integer-related logic and sum-based-certainties to one side and pour all my available energies into a study of the text. 

The strange death of postmodernism

Now I'm no postmodernist. Indeed I have a well known loathing of the basic tenets of postmodernism. Why? For a conceptual movement that made bold claims in its rejection of meta-narratives as a mechanism for the emancipation of the subject, it did a thoroughly good job in providing a theoretical underpinning for consumerism and liberal individualism. It also provided many an illustrious career for quite a few former lefties now solidly superannuated armchair academics of no fixed principles. Apart from a few diehard neo-conservatives sympathisers, since a little event in Seattle 1999 and the emergence of global movements in opposition to something called capitalism, postmodernism has been largely consigned to the ashheap of history, more recently aided to its final resting place by the efforts of vast numbers of ordinary people in a series of revolutions from below against Western backed dictatorships in the Middle East.

From dogma to dog bottoms

Besides it was proving entirely wanting in removing dog shit from an afflicted shoe. I sought the help of a postmodernist friend. All she could offer was a series of discourses about the nature of each atom of the turd instead of dealing with the totality. And I needed to get the rectal toffee off my shoe quickly. So I believed I had good reason to reject postmodernism and as if to cement this notional non-relationship, self-important philosophical types within informed circles outside my own had pre-posited the proposition in a pre-paid envelope not to be opened until after my death. It stated clearly that I was cut from a far Tweedier moth-ridden cloth. This undermined to a large extent those who suggested publicly that of late I've started to exhibit a strong tendency towards infantile histrionical pre-modernism. But like Wittgenstein, I felt that in concentrating my energies on the text, there could arise problems from interpretations or misunderstandings of the logic in specific published statements. Given recent events I felt that this could quite easily resolve itself into a second libel action. Unlike Wittgenstein, I had to factor into the equation a rogue element - a maverick insomniacal rear upper molar - which after a cup of piping hot fresh coffee, took on an almost supernatural ability to imbue within the individual a lurid taste for the liberal use of ancient etymonical Celto-Latin profanities. I was lucky no one was around to record them.

Is it safe...? Is it fuck

Not one for adhering to the notion that this could have been some form of base conspiracy drawing on a diabolical accommodation between an allegedly defamed rogue ex-manager with a penchant for grudge-bearing and a lacklustre local dental surgeon with a marked resemblance to Martin Bormann, I persevered. It was official. I was formally determined to eschew any attempt by outsiders to derail my dismal attempts at textual analysis and I had the certificate to prove it.

The benefits of textual analysis

Through a pair of all-in eyes I perused the statements. Apart from the difference in absolute terms, they appeared at a surface level to largely infer the same meaning. This was quite expected as Professor Hall is an academic of some reknown. As we've noted before, academics gravitate towards precision in the use of language and are therefore apt to choose their words carefully.

'The University aspires to be in the top quartile of UK Universities by 2017 measured by ranking in the standard league tables. This will require that we transform our performance in the core business of the University, by achieving standing in the first quartile of UK Universities in both teaching quality (currently the fourth quartile) and our research and innovation (currently the second quartile).'(1) 

I drew deeply from the hot woody infusion within the vilely stained enamel mug and winced. I compared this statement to:

'... our objective of being in the top quartile of universities for teaching by 2017.' (2)

Yes they were unambiguously similar in their tone. But they weren't the same. The first emphasised the aspiration to achieve top quartile status in 'teaching quality', 'research and innovation' and was highly elucidatory. The second referred to 'teaching' and wasn't. I rubbed my face trying to soothe the ache which had spread like a venomous wildfire up through my right temple. I spent much time mulling this one over. If 'teaching quality' could be construed as a largely qualitative issue did this mean that 'teaching' could be construed as a largely quantitative issue? I was enveloped in a duvet of wordy confusion akin to that imposed from above by the remaining five seconds of the tyrannical Countdown clock. I also wondered where the 'research and innovation' bit had gotten to.

Forsaking a reliance on the dark arts

It's often said by me that I'm a firm believer in research and innovation. Like all good beliefs, it's based on fear. Where would the dental industry be without research and innovation? Mahogany teeth? I laughed out loud. Clearly only the most undistinguished farceur on auto-pilot would make the suggestion to me that it would be in the interest of any Higher Education establishment to finger the 'eject' button and relegate to the consideration of our old friend the shitter, the research aspect or indeed that of innovation within any university. After all, both play an important role in ensuring industries remain dynamic. More generally, universities play a central role globally acting as the agar upon which industries and future industries grow, flourish and compete effectively against other national capitals. Well that was the theory anyways... I shivered as I imagined the future of British dentistry as a series of outtakes from Saw IV.* Without research and innovation we'd be back to the bad old days of bread and mustard facial poultices. Any university that adopted and enacted any strategic decision based upon a policy of abandoning research and innovation might run the very real risk of transforming an Higher Education establishment into a Further Education establishment. The consequences of such actions were clear. No Vice Chancellor of any university plate glass or otherwise would like to have the word 'magician' emblazoned upon their curriculum vitae would they? They'd be widely viewed among their peers as some sort of reverse alchemist hell-bent on turning the gold of deepening the knowledge of humanity into the base lead of sciolism. It's just plain silly. To those churls who've already contacted me about this matter, please, it's a fool's errand. Do not read anything into this. Just accept that it's easy to write things and to forget to include words. I do it all the time.

When I reach terra firma, I'll finish by doing that mimey thing where I pretend 
there's a plate glass wall with pretend engraved plate glass door in it...

Student retention -v- Staff retention

The Vice Chancellor's latest analysis on the lack of upward mobility in the Guardian League Tables is quite singular:

'Dear Colleague,

You may have seen the Guardian’s University Guide 2012 league table which was published last week. Whilst it is disappointing to see that we have dropped in the rankings, it is important to understand the context of this drop, which we had expected. The Guardian league table, unlike the other national league tables, does not use student retention as one of its key performance indicators. This is one of the areas in which we have made significant progress in the past 12 months. Rather, the Guardian relies more on the staff student ratio; something that has had an impact on us this year because the increase in student numbers through improved retention coincided with the period, through the 2009/10 academic year, when we were recruiting for some 60 new academic posts and therefore had an unusually low level of academic staffing in several Schools. In addition, because many newly-recruited academic staff were not in post at the time that the data used for the league tables was collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, this artificially decreased our average spending per student. This is a further, significant, component in the formula that lies behind the Guardian’s league table. We have already made progress in a number of areas which – whilst not reflecting well in the short term through this particular league table’s methodology – will contribute to our objective of being in the top quartile of universities for teaching by 2017.

Kind regards

Martin Hall Vice-Chancellor.'

Professor Hall is right. It is disappointing. Disappointing but not entirely without precedent. He's also correct when he states that the Guardian do not directly use student retention in compiling their tables. Yet in a roundabout sort of way, they do use staff retention. It's called the student/staff ratio. One might suppose that the powers that be within the Strategic Leadership Team (SLT) are breathing a metaphorical collective sigh of relief that staff retention plays little if any role in the compilation of the other national university league tables. It would be interesting to see where Salford would be placed on any such table in light of the further 337 'role transformations' announced recently.

What were those two friggin' words again..?

L'éléphant dans la salle d'eau

I thought about what he meant when he said we had to understand the 'context of this drop'. It was almost as an afterthought that I noticed that two very important words were missing from the VC's statement. I wondered if under the daily labour of steering the great liner SS Salford, he'd forgotten to include these two words as well. The words 'unusually low' with reference to academic staffing in 2009/2010 provided much inward mirth, a bout of mucous-related convulsions of the chestial region known colloquially as 'lung-ing' and sparked high levels of conjecture among amused former colleagues and ardent worriers. I felt the words were related and decided that a question needed asking as to why was it unusual that academic staffing levels were low at this specific moment in time? After some perusal I developed something much less than a theory... more of an opinion and it centred around two unmanifested words - PROJECT HEADROOM.

Rescanning the statement, I noted that there was no mention of the 148 odd teaching and academic posts lost through Project Headroom in 2009 which would likely have had an impact on the staff/student ratio in 2009/10. Now Vice Chancellor Hall didn't take up the reins until August 1st 2009 so he can't be held to account for this. But there's no mention of who was in post at the time and is ultimately responsible for implementing a policy whereby certain Schools had 'unusually low academic staffing' levels. No mention of why contingencies were not in place to ensure that the 'many newly recruited academic staff' who 'were not in post', were in post prior to any such job losses. Again no mention of which University Strategic Leadership Team member was corporately responsible for this state of affairs.

A second opinion

I've got another opinion and I might as well air it here. It concerns an issue that may have ramifications for the future.

Putting aside issues concerning civil matters being dealt with through the civil courts at the moment, I've been accused of some pretty serious stuff by figures of some authority within the University of Salford during my period of employment: bullying, harassment, victimisation and bringing the University into disrepute. I've also been accused of committing criminal acts by senior figures from within the SLT such as running a hate website, stalking (in a personal capacity) stalking (in an electronic capacity), harassment... it's quite a long list. If I still lived down South I'd probably be knocking around with Bill Sykes. Notwithstanding the making of these allegations to third parties, not one shred of evidence has been provided by the University to back such claims. Nor were any of these allegations of criminal behaviour put to me by the University or their representatives. Indeed, I only discovered such allegations had been made via a Subject Access Request or two courtesy of the Data Protection Act. Given the extensive levels of such low criminal behaviour I'm alleged to have been involved in, any reasonable person would have surmised that the police would have been informed. Apparently they haven't. I know this to be the case as Mr Matthew Stephenson who is an authority on issues related to information at UoS told me so by email.

An obvious attempt by the Israelis to damage a university

A less than clear example of damaging the reputation of a university

In light of some of the above allegations, the upshot was that through a process of applied textual lampooning I was deemed to have brought the 'University into disrepute'. It's a lovely little phrase. It's so manifestly general that it can mean almost anything. In the writing of one or two satirical and obviously comedic spoof newsletters, I was also accused by the old Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe to have been indulging in an 'obvious attempt to damage the reputation of the University...' (3) and suspended as a postgraduate student. Of course I disputed this and still do.

What has this to do with the above? Well it's quite obvious to even the most oaken-headed vulgarian that I no longer work at the University of Salford. Yet still the decline in the national league tables continues. So how then did I bring the University into disrepute? Well it appears I didn't. How do I know this to be the case? Well the chap who sacked me - the Chair of the Disciplinary Panel Phillip Hopwood - said so under recent cross examination. So did the Chair of the Appeal Panel Simon Attwell (who upheld the University's decision to dismiss me) when he gave evidence with Hopwood at the Employment Tribunal in March. Both were asked before the Tribunal by the persistent Mr Longley for such evidence of damage to the University. Neither could provide any. I shall leave it to the imagination of the reader to fathom how a person can be sacked for bringing the university into disrepute when no evidence of such can be provided by the University?

It's got something to do with numbers...

I'm gladdened that Hall suggests that the decline in the Guardian tables is directly correlated to the decline in academic staff numbers in 2009-10. You see I distinctly recall being involved with other staff and students (with the support of the campus trade unions) in a very vocal campaign referred to by Dr Graves in an email to Harloe and Watkinson 31st May 2009,(4) which we sought to save 150 teaching, academic and academic related jobs at risk under Project Headroom. Therefore my involvement in this campaign opposing such job cuts could be construed as an obvious attempt to halt any rise in the staff/student ratio and clearly an action designed to stop the University being damaged. I might include my satiric writings which were a personal endeavor. The Vice Consul's Newsletters highlighted the job losses and other important issues such as bullying of staff by managers. They also raised the issue of the appointments process in the Salford Business School. That Hall decided to ask an outside organisation in 2010 to scrutinise issues such as the appointments process in the SBS is in my view something of a vindication.

To recap: it appears that I'm not in the least responsible for the decline in the league tables through either damaging the reputation of the University or bringing the University into disrepute. Given this, like many other staff, I'd like to know who is?

They seek him here... they seek him there...

In my view, if some person or persons unknown implement a set of policies which drive a university up the national league tables, this clearly enhances its reputation. If a person or persons as yet unknown implement a set of policies that lead to a decline in the tables almost year on year surely this must be damaging the reputation of the university and bringing such university into disrepute? If this be the case, maybe it's at least time to change policies?



Notes and References

*Not to be confused with a sore foreskin

(1) University of Salford Strategic Plan 2009/10 to 2017/18, pg11, sourced at http://staff.salford.ac.uk/transforming/documents/university_of_salford_strategic_plan.pdf

(2) M Hall, message to staff, May 23rd 2011
(3) Student suspension letter sent to GPD by Vice Chancellor Michael Harloe 12 June 2009.
(4) Email A Graves to M Harloe, K Watkinson, 31 may 2009. One is to presume that the 'sustained campaign.. over six months' Dr Graves refers to in this email refers to my activities involving the SUDE staff/student campaign from December 2008 which opposed the 150 job losses asked for by Dr Graves and other Strategic Leadership Team members under Project Headroom. SUDE (Salford University Defend Education) was a staff/student led campaign group which held regular weekly meetings where strategies and tactics were debated, decided and implemented democratically. SUDE organised lobbies of Brendan Barber at a Salford Business School annual lecture, organised a series of high profile protests and a campaigned against course closures.


All the above is of course the opinion of the author. For corrections please email vagrantsintheworkhouse@gmail.com

A funny thing happened on the way to the revolution...

Ancient Egypt's post-industrial paradigm meant
this Pharaoh had to build the pyramids by himself

Recent events in Tunisia and Egypt are an enduring reminder that revolution continues to play a central role in a globalised world despite the many epitaphs and obituaries afforded to it by academics, political pundits and the literary mouthpieces for global US domination.

The spectacle of Western political elites such as David Cameron, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, lining up to publicly affirm their commitment to liberal democracy and their obvious sincerity in their wish to see democracy take root in Tunisia and Egypt is only marginally preposterous when we consider the public and political support that these Western 'democracies' have consistently provided to the very same leaders and regimes. While Mubarak and Ben Ali murdered, imprisoned, tortured their own civilian populations, the US and UK governments punished them with trade deals and rather large sums  in US aid ($1.3 billion a year according to The Guardian).(1) Despite the attempts of previous British and US administrations to bring down Mubarak by the use of extreme friendship, it took the active engagement of a non-friendship strategy and the democratic mobilisation of hundreds of thousands if not millions to end his rule.

The cacophony of the democratic 'transitionals'

Although somewhat a sceptic when it comes to believing anything reported in the mainstream media, this writer thought it a little odd that some journalists should feel a little in the way of surprised that a little hostility had been shown to them by the crowds. To anyone with half filled cranium, one might have viewed this as perfectly understandable given the above support of the British and US for the soon-to-be-vanquished dictator and his bloodthirsty state machine. That the press have to a considerable degree indulged in the same sort of cack-fence-hand-balancing act that has characterised Cameron's recent vacillatory bleatings has not been lost on the ordinary Egyptian activist.

At the root of this is the West's concern that the usurption of their man in Egypt may not sufficiently dissipate the anger and opposition of the mass of Egyptians, and may act as a brake on the formulation of any government sympathetic to Western aims in the region. One other paragon of democratic delight in the region is also mightily concerned as should be the case. The expansionist state of Israel, which represents such a healthy example of what a vibrant democracy and economy should look like, that it stolidly refuses to accept the $3 billion or so in aid dished out to it by the US government every year is taking recent events very seriously indeed.(2) The Egyptian regime has been a vital ally of Israel. Without the pro-Israeli Anwar Sadat and his successor Mubarak, it is unlikely that Israel would have been able to consolidate its positions in the Occupied Territories, wage a bloody war or two against another democracy in the region - Lebanon - and commit gross human rights atrocities daily against the Palestinian peoples to say nothing of its war crimes against the population of Gaza. Thus politicians of all colours and the Western media are pushing the idea of 'transition' which for them means business as usual, and for the Egyptians, after a few democratic frills and thrills have been added to their creaking constitution, back to the business of squeezing every last drop of profit from Egyptian workers which brings us nicely to the point of this article.

Apparently, due to a shift from industrial to knowledge
production and services, this lot don't exist anymore
(striking textile workers Malhalla el-Kubra 2009)

What's that you say... the working class... not in my post-industrial paradigm!

There is however a more fundamental problem for Western political and business leaders which has loomed like veritable spectre that may yet return to haunt Europe. They are currently busy ramming home neoliberal policies and massive cuts in social provision across Europe (Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and the UK) in order to stave off economic collapse and further enrich the already rich at our expense. Mubarak's been in the vanguard of a similar set of policies which he's been happily visiting on his own people for decades, like some latter day global reincarnation of the Exodian plagues. Thus, the speed with which events in Tunisia and Algeria hopped across North Africa showing utter disdain for national borders and engulfed Egypt, has sent a shiver down the collective spines (if one might be found) among the Western ruling classes. It would appear that Trotsky's theories on permanent revolution have never been so apposite.

Post-industrialism -  a theory of the middle class by the middle class, for the middle class

There has been a corollary in the forcing of the Washington Consensus policies down the publics' collective throats for decades. They have also been ideologically bludgeoned into accepting the common sense notion that the working class as a force for revolutionary change in the world, belongs to a long-buried past. It's a past lazily epitomised by many now-cynical once left-ish academics and vox-pop political commentators as the failed 'actually existing socialism' and 'communist' experiment of the former USSR and its satellite states of Eastern Europe. For much of the press and media, because of the almost hegemonic status of this view, this most recent (and ongoing) revolution must therefore be characterised as 'middle class' because to them, the 'other lot' only inhabit the footnotes in dusty tomes in the British Library or have slipped down the social scale and now inhabit a Sub-Dickensian cider-sodden underworld  three clicks away from Cannery Row referred to increasingly by the same media types and social analysts as 'the underclass'. Besides, if we believed the press, the entire revolution was achieved by a single FaceBook savvy post-graduate with a laptop and over-ambitious sebaceous glands.

This is not to willfully avoid the obvious fact that much mass middle class discontent (unemployment and the end of 'jobs for life' in the civil service for middle class university graduates) has played an important role within the revolution. Rare are the revolutions that consist of a single class actor. But how often have we been told by the likes of Ronald Inglehart and his merry band of post-materialists that it's by and large the working class whose demands tend to centre on the material while the middle classes protest about the environment, nuclear disarmament and chlorine-free tampons?

The roots of the revolution

Yet the recent social mass explosion that has led to Mubarak's political demise, should not be seen in isolation nor as the consequence of the ire of an increasingly disenfranchised and powerless middle class. It should viewed as an extension of mass working class opposition to both the regime and the neoliberal policies of the West eagerly pursued by Mubarak resulting in increasing numbers of strikes that have raged in the industrial centres of Egypt for many years. "What rot! Why haven't we heard about these strikes?" I hear you chime. It's quite elementary my dear Watsons.  It's a sort of self-fulfilling logic (based on simple cause and effect) which goes something like this: because the working class no longer exist or at best, are few in number, why report the activities of a small minority. People have money in their pockets, may own their own homes (ex-council) have computers, mobile phones and go on holiday at least once a year. It's a very good indicator to social mobility. We're all middle class! (or at least lower-middle class). Thus reporting working class strikes isn't particularly relevant or popular (and might give people the wrong idea) and as such, they're about as welcome on the BBC teatime news or Newsnight as a poorly timed methaneous emission at a canary testing factory. Rare unless it happens to be on British Airways and has a detrimental impact on the holiday plans of social class grade B and C1.

British Airways cabin crews prior
to being post-industrialised out of history

Malhalla el-Where?

So it's no surprise that the wave of strikes that have defined Egypt for the past three to four years, particularly around the huge textile mills of Mahalla el-Kubra,(3) have made hardly a dent in the scheduling of BBC news or the wider press. Why would reporters wish to cover this? Strikes are only ever about material things after all - 'knife and fork' issues. They're never political are they? It's a general rule of thumb among many used to determine what's newsworthy and what's not concerning all things industrial. And it is of course entirely wrong. And exactly who are these people who the 'determining'... the people who have not only accepted the 'post-industrial' paradigm but have acted as the vanguard in convincing us that the working class really have 'ceased to be' in cod Cleesian terminology? They accept the ideology and feel the need to convince us the same should we feel the need to organise and resist the magnetic attraction of this perfectly natural phenomenon known as 'the market'. As most are drawn from the middle class, educated at the elite universities such as Cambridge and Oxford, they rarely go on strike. It's hardly surprising that they should hold such views. Besides, they don't want their weekend breaks ruined in a bout of wildcat action by baggage handlers at Stanstead.

The new middle class

But the evidence shows that that the Egyptian working class have consistently been at the forefront of the fightback against the state, rising prices, unemployment and for key political demands for many years. Alexander has written extensively on the importance of working class resistance to the market reforms of the Mubarak regime and provides in her analysis a level of continuity between events over the last few years and those of today.(4) Their actions have provided the space for such recent political demands to be formulated. They have consistently confronted Mubarak's state repressive apparatus head-on and have given wider Egyptian society (with the Tunisian masses) the confidence to take on the state machinery. In contrast, the FaceBook analyses provided by the Oxbridge elites and political journos and commentators have proved largely ahistorical and frankly wanting.

An example to test this ridiculous assumption

Last weekend (5-6th Feb), the British news media appeared to have placed the Egyptian revolution lower down its list of priorities for reportage. Indeed, after the violence of the counter-revolution in the guise of the plain clothes police thugs and pro-Mubarak supporters on camel-back charging through the throng, if one was to believe much of the news coverage, it was all pretty much over and the most that the protesters could expect was many more months of Mubarak in power until a orderly 'transition' to civilian rule could be organised. Yet within one or two days, with the spreading of strikes across Egypt and the active participation of the working classes in the vanguard of the protest movement (it was noted on the BBC news around the same time how many middle class activists had been driven from Tahrir Square by the violence of the pro-Mubarak forces who had taken the streets, to be replaced by even greater numbers of workers)(5)

Enter the dragon

By Tuesday and Wednesday it had all changed. BBC news reporters and the press had switched from endless pictures of mass humanity in Tahrir Square to pictures of striking workers on the Suez Canal,(6) to reporting strikes by doctors, lawyers (the respectable end of the strike movement) striking rail and public transport workers.(7) In Cairo, hundreds of 'electricity workers stood in front of the South Cairo Electricity Company, demanding the ousting of its director.'(8) Few could deny the political relevance of this act against a government appointed bureaucrat of a state-owned company. Railway workers wishing to strike across the country were asked to remain at work to enable protesters to travel by rail to the major protests being organised, a striking example if any of the potential power of sections of the working class in 'post-industrial' society.(9) With the growing participation of increasing numbers of striking workers in key industries, the movement was emboldened, given a fresh impetus and wielded real power.(10)

The same old tears...

The example of events in Tunisia and Egypt are there for us to draw from and learn. This will not be lost on our own ruling political elites (and the elites who exert dominance over every minute of our lives but are never elected - the capitalist ruling class and the unaccountable managerial elites who exercise power on their behalf) who behind the cloak of 'democratic legitimacy', savage our welfare, health and education systems, throw hundred of thousands on the scrapheap and impose more WTO and World Bank prescriptive measures upon us in the form of sell-offs and forced privatisations. Expect a tightening up of the British legal system as our own homegrown security police apparatus adopt the 'Mubarak methodology' as tens and hundreds of thousands take to the streets to oppose to these vicious and damaging policies.

TUC Demonstration Against Cuts, Saturday 26th March 2011, assemble 11am Victoria Embankment, London, march to rally in Hyde Park,

As such, it is beholden upon us to join our Egyptian brothers and sisters and exhort our trade union branches to provide coaches for the Demonstration Against Cuts.

(1) Source The Guardian, Friday 4th Feb 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/04/egypt-protests-us-military-aid
(2) Counterpunch sourced at http://www.counterpunch.org/christison03052009.html
(3) Sourced at http://www.arabawy.org/2009/07/15/egypt-workers-fight-for-pay-and-against-the-state/
(4) Alexander A, Inside Egypt's Mass Strikes, International Socialism Journal, 03 March 2008 sourced at http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=428
(5) Source The Economist at http://www.economist.com/node/18063746
(6) Sourced at http://wallstreetpit.com/61006-suez-canal-workers-go-on-strike
(7) Sourced at http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/09/Rail-workers-strike-in-Egypt/UPI-23911297278607/
(8) The Globe and Mail, Feb 09 2011, sourced at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/crisis-in-egypt/workers-strike-as-egyptian-uprising-moves-to-second-stage/article1901299/
(9)Sourced at http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=207693&R=R3
(10) Tehran Times 11 Feb 2011, sourced at http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/09/Rail-workers-strike-in-Egypt/UPI-23911297278607/