I received news that the government has yielded to the Grain Mills workers’ demands in Giza and Cairo. Frightened by the 9000-strong sit-in and a looming strike, the regime agreed not to cut down the supply of wheat to the company, and revoked its earlier decision to divert part of the supply to privately-owned firms–a move that would have cut down production in the company’s grain mills, decreased workers’ bonuses, signalling the gradual liquidation of the public company.
In other developments, 4,000 textile workers in Alexandria’s state-owned United Arab Bolivara Spinning and Weaving Silk Company resumed their strike yesterday, denouncing the management’s decision to deduct the five days of production stoppage, during last month’s strike, out of the workers’ monthly salaries. I’m told by a Socialist journalist that the strike was suspended last night, but no more details available yet.
Meanwhile, the closure of the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services branch in Naga’a Hammadi continues, as the government accuses its directors of being “communists who spread the culture of strikes.”