Work came to complete halt at Ghazl Shebeen el-Kom Textile Factory since yesterday 3pm, with around 3,000 workers staging a sit-in protesting their state management’s unfulfilled promises as the company goes into private ownership tomorrow.
I called one of the engineers currently on strike, and he told me the following:
-The work force of the factory is around 4,000 workers. None has broken the strike.
-The government owned company was sold to a multinational called Andurama three months ago, after a rotten evaluation of its assets, and the management hand over should officially happen tomorrow.
-The workers were promised 140-day bonuses (for fulfilling the production plan from July 2006 to 31 January 2007) to be paid as the deal is sealed, but when the morning shift workers went to receive their pay at 3pm, they were shocked to find that only a 45-day loan (not bonus) was awaiting them. They refused to receive the pay, and staged a sit in, as the afternoon shift workers were coming in. The latter, when informed of what happened, joined the sit in and refused to work, demanding to meet any government official to get an explanation for the unfulfilled promises. The company should have sent out buses to pick up the night shift workers, but it didn’t. So the night shift workers came on their expense to the factory to join their colleagues’ strike.
-From a total of 4,000 workforce, there are between 2,500 to 3,000 who are actively present on the factory floor and taking part in the open-ended occupation.
-The workers were promised 12% shares of the factory on privatization. Up till this moment, no official explained to the workers the details of the agreement.
-And just like the case of Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, the Factory Union Committee is standing against the strike, I was told by the engineer I spoke to who also charged that the union members received their full bonuses, and told the workers “go away, we received our bonuses. There’s nothing we can do for you.”
A report in Arabic is available on Kefaya’s website.