‘We are not cheap labor:’ BBC workers in Cairo strike over low wages, discrimination

BBC workers in Cairo organized a one-day strike on Wednesday to protest the administration's discriminatory treatment of Egyptian nationals on staff, according to two strikers who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.

“Everyone gets what they’re due in dollars,” said one of the employees, “except for Egyptians working in the Cairo office.”

The BBC pays higher salaries to foreign nationals to staff working from the Cairo bureau, while rates of pay for Egyptian nationals working with the British outlet have not been adjusted since 2020, failing to account for the depreciation in the value of the Egyptian pound by over 50 percent against the dollar over that period.

“They treat us as cheap labor,” said both the sources.

Staff first requested in March 2020 that managers reconsider how wages are calculated, said the first employee. Office rent, lawyers' fees, employees of BBC bureaus abroad who work from the Cairo office, and remuneration for journalists working from abroad with foreign correspondents all get paid in dollars, according to the employee.

Intensive negotiations with BBC Cairo managers began in February, they said, with new Journalists Syndicate head Khaled al-Balshy later intervening on behalf of BBC Cairo staff. 

Managers dismissed the option of implementing an annual increase, said Balshy, speaking to Mada Masr on Wednesday, and announced what he said were “unsatisfactory” increases of no more than 17 percent.

“Our salaries had lost more than half their value,” said the staffer, commenting on the rate of the proposed increase. The central bank has acted on three separate occasions over the past year to adjust the value of the Egyptian pound downward, and is expected to continue to do so to meet policy recommendations stipulated in the December agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a US$3 billion Extended Fund Facility.

The BBC’s Istanbul and Beirut offices faced similar issues due to the devaluation of the Turkish and Lebanese currencies, Balshy noted, but managers ultimately decided to pay out salaries in dollars in both of those cases, said Balshy.

But in Egypt, no such change has taken place. According to a second worker source from the BBC office in Cairo, speaking to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, managers make indirect reminders to employees regarding the press environment in Egypt, the scarcity of job opportunities, and the fact that security authorities' perceptions of BBC employees might prevent other domestic press and media institutions from hiring ex-BBC employees.

“In an official statement the day before the strike, the management told us that it was on track to boost salaries by 27 percent,” said the first staff member, noting that this was still far below the drop in the staff’s purchasing power during Egypt’s economic crisis.

On Wednesday, the strike went ahead, with journalists, administrators, photographers and technical staff joining a day’s protest action. Mada Masr tried to contact BBC Cairo bureau chief Ashraf Madbuly for comment on the administration's position on the strike but received no response by the time of publication.

Speaking from the strike headquarters, Balshy expressed demands for the administration to stop discriminating against its workers, and called on the BBC’s management to treat workers in the Cairo office in the same way as workers in other offices such as Turkey and Lebanon are treated. 

Managers should propose clear solutions, said Balshy, and should not force the workers to continue escalatory measures.

The UK’s National Union of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists announced on Wednesday their solidarity with the strikers, calling on top officials at the news network for change. 

In a statement, the National Union of Journalists called for managers at the BBC in the UK to reconsider the wage policy for the workers in the Cairo office, while the International Federation of Journalists denounced on Wednesday the failure of the BBC management to amend the salary policy in line with the ongoing devaluation of the Egyptian pound.