"The workers aren't afraid of being dragged before military courts," Khalil says. "If the strikes are strong, the military won't be able to stop them."

Right after Mubarak's resignation, the government increased public sector salaries and bonuses. The question now is whether workers will join their economic demands to the calls for radical reform of Egypt's political system - or whether labor unions will repeat modern Egyptian history, breaking ranks with political dissenters to negotiate a separate deal with the regime.

Egypt's dictators developed sophisticated tools to thwart strictly political dissent, and the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has deployed those tactics regularly over the last nine months to discredit or silence critics, accusing them of taking foreign money or of sowing chaos, throwing some of them in jail.

Workers, however, are a harder target. Almost all Egyptians can relate to underpaid employees, whether in a factory or at a hospital. And the kind of corruption that really enrages the average Egyptian is the workaday sort that thrives in the centralized government bureaucracy and in the workplace, the kind of patronage and graft that saps the public treasury and leaves buses always breaking down, hospitals overcrowded, and basic goods unaffordable for working families.

There's an unmistakably bold, anti-authoritarian streak among the striking workers, most of whom take home around $100 per month.

On Saturday, jubilant teachers assembled in front of the Egyptian government's cabinet headquarters, demanding a minimum monthly salary of about $500 and the replacement of the Mubarak-holdover education minister.

The next day, the teachers decamped. "We're giving the government a week, maybe a month, to meet our demands," teacher and organizer Hala Talaat said. "I don't think they will, so we'll have to go back on strike."

The labor avalanche wasn't slowing though. Thousands of striking public transportation workers took the place of the teachers outside the cabinet building. All 47,000 of Cairo's public bus drivers and support staff have gone on strike. They are demanding better pay, health care, and professional uniforms. A parade of workers brandished their pay stubs, showing take home pay ranging from about $60 a month for a rookie to $120 for a 19-year veteran.

"We're just demanding our bread," said Adel Mahmoud, a driver with a missing front tooth and a soft, diffident voice. "Wages and prices are out of balance in Egypt."

Mahmoud and the cluster of striking drivers around him said they didn't trust the government; already, the prime minister had promised wage hikes in June, only to renege because he claimed the government couldn't afford it. The more simultaneous strikes, they all agreed, the greater the pressure on the government and the greater likelihood of success.