What happens when you don't pay your workers enough?

So much trash!







As Shahira explained, there are several discrepancies between the Arabic and English versions of the workers' contracts. Basically, their contracts say 600 pounds per month, but they only receive 400 after taking out "implicit expenses" the University has in place like health care. It's pretty hard to live on 400 pounds a month (=$80).

While they may have much better-paying jobs than the vast majority of Egyptians out there, AUC can clearly afford to pay these people just a little more. They work hard to keep the campus clean, which is a Herculean task in itself owing to the lack of...well, water and civilization, as well as the constant invasions of sand and dust.

Oh, and another thing. AUC students who litter.
As these students demonstrated solidarity with the workers, I couldn't help but notice a few other things. First, they pledged to skip classes to continue their protests. That's a nice sacrifice in theory, but in reality a lot of students' usual attendance records indicate otherwise...

Second, some of these students are the reason AUC's campus is currently such a mess. I see people littering every day. Trash goes in the trash cans, not on the ground. While the workers will pick up your trash for you if you leave it somewhere, that does NOT mean you can act irresponsible. (This is not a cultural-value issue--it's a cleanliness and social norms one.)

It makes me wonder whether the cycle of littering-cleaning-littering is really a causal loop, feeding on itself, which benefits both the students and the workers. Because the students litter, AUC needs to employ more workers to clean up the amount of trash, so each person's pay becomes smaller to reflect the budget considerations.

As of the following Monday, AUC and the student union have negotiated and come to a solution, basically giving the workers pay raises to 1200 LE in March and September 2011 as well as a 200 LE increase in meal compensation. Well, something clearly worked, and I'll give the students and workers credit for that. Still, this issue illustrates a certain hypocrisy that I'm seeing around here.