Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Egyptian Textile workers continue strike for 4th day

Makarim Textile Co. workers continued their strike for the fourth day in protest against denying them a 15% of basic salary social allowance decreed by the government and a 7% salary increase.

The workers called again on President Mubarak to intervene after Minister of Manpower Aisha Abdel Hadi failed to meet her promise when they ended their last strike.

Workers Mohsen Ali, Ibrahim Hassan and Awad el-Sayed said the workers would not end their strike unless they get all their rights, stressing that the company is making profits contrary to what the management claims.

The workers said Managing Director Ahmed el-Shafei threatened to fire them in a memo rather than solve their problems. "Go strike at home," he wrote.

They said that what was mentioned in the memo about the availability of production requirements was not true, as they have been short for three months, and they threatened to go on hunger strike if their problem is not solved quickly.

On another mote, fifty cleaning fees collectors demonstrated in Mahala before the governorate headquarters for the second time in a week in protest against Governor el-Shafei el-Dakrouri assigning the electricity company to collect the fees, assuring that his decision put them out of work.

They said they have been working on temporary contracts since 2006 after the electricity company failed to collect the fees, stressing that they have generated significant revenues, and requesting the governor to revise his decision or provide them with alternative jobs

3 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

Egypt has been having rising working class action. See this.

Unknown said...

Great stuff.

blackstone said...

Thanks for the link renegade eye, your absolutely right, Egypt has been a hotbed for working class action in Africa, and Northern Africa in particular. There has been alot of great activity in the last year, specifically the strikes and workers actions in the text tile industry. The Egyptians have a strong labor movement and hopefully this tide will increase militancy in other Northern African countries worker's movements.

But definitely readers keep your eye on Egypt when it comes to labor movements in Africa.