I’ve spoken with a Socialist activist inside the factory. He says around 3am one of the members of the company board showed up and “tried to offer the workers a weak settlement, but they refused. Then around 8am in the morning a delegation from the (govt-founded) National Council for Human Rights and said they were here part of a fact finding mission to investigate the conditions of the workers. These are positive signs that the police is not going to storm the factory soon, as they were planning earlier. But of course I could be wrong, who knows how the Interior Ministry thinks. It looks like the government may be heading for a compromise to end the strike.

“If the strike ends in victory,” he continued, “can you imagine the domino effect it will have? That could well open a new season of strikes like what happened in December (2006). Anyways, let’s wait and see…”

On another front, the Socialist Students in Helwan and Cairo Universities issued statements in solidarity with the strikers. Click on the poster below to download the Cairo U statement…