The first recorded strike in history
Ancient Egypt was a stable, conservative society with a well-developed class system, and people were generally treated in accordance with their rank. Although extreme inequalities were rooted in tradition, there were also traditional limits on the amount of work that could reasonably be expected of people. If work quotas were seen as excessive or compensation considered to be inadequate, resentment and even resistance could take place. For example, according to the Hebrew scriptures this is how the ancient Israelite laborers in Egypt voiced their protest:
So the taskmasters and the supervisors of the people went out and said to the people, "Thus says Pharaoh, 'I will not give you straw. Go and get straw yourselves, wherever you can find it; but your work will not be lessened in the least.' "So the people scattered throughout the land of Egypt, to gather stubble for straw. The taskmasters were urgent, saying, "Complete your work, the same daily assignment as when you were given straw." And the supervisors of the Israelites, whom Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, "Why did you not finish the required quantity of bricks yesterday and today, as you did before?" Then the Israelite supervisors came to Pharaoh and cried, "Why do you treat your servants like this? No straw is given to your servants, yet they say to us, 'Make bricks!' Look how your servants are beaten! You are unjust to your own people." (Exodus 5:10-16)The treatment received by workers on large-scale state projects largely depended on the country's economic and political stability. For instance, toward the end of the reign of the Pharaoh Ramses III widespread corruption and inefficiency had made Egypt barely governable, and construction at the city of Thebes had apparently severely depleted the grain reserves used to pay the workers at the royal necropolis. On the 21st day of the second month, in Ramses's 29th year, the scribe Amennakht personally delivered a formal complaint about this situation to the royal mortuary temple that was part of the large administrative complex of Medinet Habu. The workers implored,
"We are hungry: eighteen days have elapsed in the month."Although a payment was soon made, the poor conditions continued, and in the sixth month of that year the workers organized the first recorded strike in history. The men of the two crews stopped work and marched together to one of the royal mortuary temples, where they staged what would today be called a sit-in. The men insisted,
"It was because of hunger and thirst that we came here. There is no clothing, no ointment, no fish, no vegetables. Send to Pharaoh our good lord about it, and send to the vizier our superior, that sustenance may be made for us."The workers repeated their protest on the following day within the complex of another temple, and possibly a third, until their complaints were recorded by the priests and sent across the river to Thebes. Only then were the rations owed finally distributed. However, similar protests were repeated before the reign of Ramses III ended; and even in the reigns of subsequent Pharaohs workers had to go on strike in order to receive payment.
(Quotes are taken from William F. Edgerton, "The Strikes in Ramses III's Twenty-Ninth Year," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Volume X, Number 3, July 1951, pp. 137-145.)
