Kamal Abbas (; born in 1955) is General Coordinator of the Center for Trade Unions and Workers Services (CTUWS), an activist group for independent unions in Egypt. Involved in activism for over 20 years, Abbas has been active in mobilizing worker support during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and its aftermath. His approach emphasizes peaceful strikes and rallies accompanied by demands for better wages and working conditions, as well as more regular elections for union officials, and an independent union system.
He began his work by organizing a strike at a steel plant in Helwan, Egypt in 1989, for which he was arrested, tortured, and fired. That incident led to his starting the CTUWS and advocating for workers' rights throughout Egypt. Abbas' relationship with Mubarak's regime was tense and marked by conflicts with the government and multiple arrests. The Los Angeles Times called Abbas "a major annoyance" to President Hosni Mubarak's regime, and "passionate, methodical and accustomed to police surveillance."
In 2007, Abbas was charged with defamation and sentenced to one year of prison. There was international condemnation of the ruling, with major labor and human rights groups defending Abbas. In February 2012 he was once again sentenced to a prison term, this time six months for "insulting" a public official.
Abbas' work gained momentum and attention during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, where he helped mobilize workers in the nationwide movement for civil rights and the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak's regime.
1989–1990: Early work and founding of CTUWS
Abbas began working in a steel mill in 1975 at the age of 20. While under the Mubarak regime, Abbas began organizing workers, despite unions being dominated by the state-approved Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF). In 1989 he participated in a strike at the Iron and Steel Company plant in Helwan where 19,000 workers sought wage increases and a meal during work. They were met by 10,000 riot police who fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the striking workers; ultimately the strike was broken up when security forces stormed the plant, resulting on one death, one hundred injuries and hundreds of arrests.
Abbas was arrested four times in the subsequent months, including 45 days of detention in which he was tortured. Following, he was terminated for participating in an "illegal" strike not sanctioned by the official trade union.
Several months later in 1990, Abbas co-founded CTUWS in Helwan to support workers and address the lack of independent unions in the private sector. He was guided by the advice of Yusuf Darwish, a long-time communist and labor lawyer, with whom Abbas had previously led the People's Socialist Party. Abbas had studied world labor movements, looking up to the power of unions in Europe and the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s. Abbas changed his ideological focus from his early ties to Marxist politics, instead focusing CTUWS on practical reform.
1990–2007: Work with CTUWS
Abbas' relationship with Mubarak's regime was tense and marked by conflicts with the government and multiple arrests.
In 1998 Abbas commented on the July strikes at the Egypt-Helwan Textiles Factory and the Nasr Pharmaceutical plant. Abbas saw the incidents as a test of the future of privatisation. He said, "People can now see that there is a choice, that they can say no."
In 1999 he spoke out on the need for education and training for workers. He said, "In Korea, development was based on a comprehensive educational policy. We still do not see this happening here. Even in the new factories, production lines are imported with a foreign expert to run them. They are assembly plants and the Egyptian worker does not have to be very skilled. The Egyptian worker does not gain the kind of knowledge that can make him an interactive part of the production process."
In the 2000 Parliamentary elections, Abbas nominated himself as an independent labor representative for Helwan. Abbas said that his General Union for Mineral, Electrical, and Engineering Industries at first refused to grant him status as a labor representative. According to Abbas, he received it, "Following a long and exhausting struggle with the general union council." He also criticized the candidacy of Minister Sayed Mash'al and supported Safir Nigm for minister of military production in the Helwan area. Abbas argued, "After Mash'al took over, there was a massive explosion at one of the factories. Five workers died and compensation was inadequate. When workers complained, [Mash'al] had dozens of them sent to jail."