Egyptian Tax Collectors Form Independent Union

In what looks, at least for now, like a major victory, Egypt's real estate tax collectors have formed an independent union, the first since 1957. It represents a break with the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions, the (government approved and hence pro-government) umbrella for official unions.

Egyptian opposition figures are celebrating what appears to be a breakthrough, though if you read the article carefully, while the Ministry of Manpower cannot "disapprove" the new union, the government has 30 days to challenge it in court.

Whatever the fate of the new union, it may serve as a reminder that Egypt may be authoritarian, but it is not totalitarian: there have always been elements of genuine representation, if only at the margins, among some of the professional syndicates, some local government institutions, and the courts. That has eroded in recent years, but it is not, and never has been, the fearsome monolith that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq.