Year: 2007
Cement workers update
The early buy-out packages negotiations reached a dead end yesterday with militant trade unionists representing Suez, Tora and Helwan Cement workers rightly raising the ceiling of their demands to discourage the Italian management from cutting down the labor force in the company, following the December strikes.
The Factory Union Committee officials, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, deliberately gave the management a set of high-ceiling demands they knew would be refused. While union officials played a sabotaging, pro-govt role in most of the current strikes, there are cases where few independent Factory Union Committees took the side of the workers, including the above mentioned cement companies.
Kefaya calls for referendum on privatization, blasts corruption in new report
From the Daily Star Egypt:
The Kefaya Movement for Change has taken a stand this week against the privatization of state-owned properties, calling for a national referendum before any further sales can take place.
The activist group, whose public support has dwindled in the last two years, claims that the country’s privatization program has been marred by rampant corruption. They argue that many properties have been sold for far less than their actual value to investors with the right political connections. In this environment, they say, the state no longer has the legitimacy to sell Egypt’s public enterprises without first consulting the people.
Kefaya’s demands were raised in a new report released by the group, entitled “No to the Sale of Egypt.”