American University in Cairo, on strike.

Custodial workers at American University in Cairo are on strike.  Wages and insurance and other deductions are a major issue - when the company subcontracted to the global food service giant compass, workers had to pay ridiculous percentages of their wages towards "commisions" and insurance.  Now this "proletariat" is still being charges such fees - directly by the university, and workers are demanding to know why.

Here's a petition being circulated via twitter by supporters of the strikers.  It lists the workers' strike committee demands as the following:

1. Receive a gross minimum monthly wage of 1,200 EGP (which means less than 1000EGP net) with equal pay for all workers who hold the same position. 
2. Have Saturday as an official holiday for the AUC workers as it is for all those employed in the maintenance, service departments and the administration. If one is to work on Saturday they shall receive overtime pay for their work. 
3. Receive 200 EGP as meal compensation (or an adequate meal) in addition to the salary. 
4. Receive annual salary raise of no less than 10% on the original wage of each worker. This percentage is subject to be increased by the administration. 
5. Receive Social Insurance coverage that includes all the years of service to the AUC. 

AUC and NYU's new campus in Abu Dhabi are very different institutions in very different places, serving very different groups of people.  AUC is not a branch campus of a U.S. higher ed brand - it is a separate independent institution founded by U.S. missionaries nearly a century ago, although it does host hundreds of U.S. study abroad students every semester, and models itself on north american higher education institutions.  I'd be interested to know if the majority of workers at AUC are Egyptian or, as in NYU's new node in the global newtowrk university, originate elsewhere, especially in south and southeast asia.  But nevertheless, what links this strike to the enduring questions that surround the proliferation of satellite and branch campuses and study abroad programs that lie at the heart of the ongoing NYU controversy is the question of how the workers whose labor makes possible the spread of U.S. higher education institutions and models abroad will be treated, how an increasingly global university system exists in relation to the labor of thousands of blue collar low-wage precarious service workers, and what it does to and with their labor in order to reproduce itself and expand its reach.

According to Amin, Brian MacDougall, AUC vice president for planning and administration, had offered to give workers an additional LE200 per month, but workers rejected the proposal.

“Last month I took home LE400," cleaner Ahmed Omar told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "This isn't enough to pay rent and living expenses."

"They kept promising to raise our salaries, but this never happened," he added.

Nasser Sayed, of the university's housekeeping department, said: “I usually get LE650 per month, but now I take only LE500. I’m married and have two kids and I’m in debt, and have to borrow money from people. When I tell people that I work for AUC, they think I get a good salary, but this isn't true.

The student newspaper, the Caravan, has previously reported on worker deaths during the construction of the university's new campus in one of Cairo's mega-exurbs as well as on the poverty conditions which are forced upon campus janitors.  (In the first article, scroll down from the discussion of the deaths to read another interesting article about janitors' grievances and acts of rebellion against Compass.)

If you want to follow the strike, which is set to continue into next week, one way to do so is by checking the twitter hashtag #AUCworkers, where supporters and activists have been posting pictures, links, and updates about the latest moves by the administration and updating the interwebs on the workers' struggle.

Now back to previously scheduled dissertating...