Abstract: | Analysis of three aspects of the development of the Egyptian labour movement and its changing relations with the state. First, since World War II, Egypt's ruling elites have gradually restructured the union movement from pluralist to corporatist forms of organization. Second, the long-term consequence of corporatist policies has been to strengthen and selectively coopt working class organizations rather than to exclude them from the policymaking process. Third, this process of corporatization is by no means irreversible; it already has generated new tensions throughout the union hierarchy. These issues are examined from three perspectives: changes in public policy toward union organization; a brief history of the Egyptian Confederation of Labor; and the appearance of several types of cleavage within the Confederation. Notes, ref. |