Via Al-Masry Al-Youm English Edition:
Around 1000 workers at the Tanta Flax and Oil Company continued their strike for the 72nd day on the row, rejecting a suspension order from the state-backed union issued Sunday night. By 11 Monday morning, the workers had taken to the streets–blocking off the highway in front of the factory in Mit Hebeish, near Tanta’s southern entrance.
For more than two months, the strikers have protested the management of a Saudi businessman, Abdel Ilah el-Kahki, who purchased the company when it was privatized in 2005. The new owner, they complain, has delayed salaries and bonuses and already sacked nine prominent strike leaders.
Police and security forces were quick to intervene Monday, and by noon at least eight Central Security Forces trucks and one armored vehicle accompanied by an ambulance were making their way to the factory in order “to shut us down,” said one worker over the phone as the vehicles began to come into view.
According to strikers Safwat Michel and Hisham el-Okal, security forces cordoned off the area in front of the factory where hundreds of workers are continuing their sit-in. Michel said via telephone that “the security have put trucks in front of the factory and are not letting anything through.”
The workers tried to go to the local mosques in Mit Hebeish village and rally the local residents on behalf of the strikers, but they were banned by the police, el-Okal said.
“The security told the head of the village that he will lose his job if he allows us to go up the minarets and use the microphones to call for help from the citizens,” said el-Okal, one of the factory’s most vocal strike leaders who was fired for his activities.
On Sunday evening in Cairo, the strike leaders met with representatives from state-backed General Union of Textile Workers where they were asked to end their strike and given, “verbal promises to solve our problem,” said el-Okal.
His colleague Michel said the strikers have no intention of ending their activities until their concerns are addressed.
“We have been waiting for our demands to be heard and the owner has not wanted to deal with us properly until now, so why should we,” he said
Workers, said el-Okal, had put together new banners, hung on the factory’s gates, denouncing private investors and calling for the government to re-nationalize the company. Others, including el-Okal, have openly called for the self-management of the firm, away from both private investment and the Egyptian government.
A sit-in at the Labor Ministry was scheduled for Sunday morning, but due to security pressure, the state-run general union backed out.