Via Al-Masry Al-Youm:
Around 250 workers of the Nile Cotton Ginning Company at Mahalla, Zefta and Kafr al-Zayat in Gharbeia governorate have started a sit-in, accusing Chairman of the Board Abdel Ma’aboud el-Sayfi of not paying them a 7% annual bonus since the 2004. Workers sent faxes to both the Ministers of Manpower and Immigration and of Investment, demanding their unpaid salaries, bonuses and the overtime they say the company committed to them through signed agreements.
The strike has also spread to the company’s branch at Etay el-Baroud, in the Beheira governorate, who threatened to strike after three days of unpaid work in July. They also claim they did not receive a seven per cent yearly bonus, as well as a 10 per cent social bonus.
The workers assert their strike will continue until the dispute is resolved, and hope the ministries will respond as they have in other situations under pressure.
The Ministry of Manpower and Immigration, for example, has paid out of its emergency aid fund a minimum of LE 200 for each of the 1,500 workers of Abul Sebae in Mahalla, whose salaries have been delayed for two or three months.
In related news in Daqahliya, a number of temporary employees in the faculty of engineering of Mansoura University continued a strike for a second day, objecting to the dean’s refusal to make their salaries equal to those of permanent university employees. Muhammad el-Shabrawy, the faculty dean, promised the strikers during a meeting with them yesterday that he would increase their October salaries.
Not all strikes have persisted, however. In Suez, the workers of a fertilizer factory have ended a strike after three weeks, under police pressure. They did not receive any compensation from the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration.