Cairo Civil Aviation employees continue their protests against former PM Ahmad Shafiq — who was also Mubarak’s Civil Aviation Minister after he left the command of the airforce — exposing corruption, and calling for improving their work conditions.

In a stormy meeting with their union representatives, the flight attendants complained from abusive treatment by their bosses:

1-The attendants demanded increasing the value of their health insurance, and to make it include work injuries and diseases not covered by the current one. They are also demanding they see this insurance contract EgyptAir has with Misr Insurance, which the management insists on keeping its documents secret!

2-Those who lose their flight licenses for medical reasons, are transferred to desk jobs, with 50% loss in income. The flight attendants want that changed.

3-The attendants are also charging that management is infested with corruption, and that “flight managers” are chosen according to their personal contacts with senior managers, not according to a specific work regulation or experience.

There will be another meeting for the association on 29 May, where union officials promised they’ll get back to the attendants with answers from the management regarding their demands.

There are between 2000 to 2,500 flight attendants with the govt-owned carrier EgyptAir. The union officials in today’s meeting were not welcoming to the presence of the media, and refused to allow journalists to photograph inside the room. We had to stay outside and follow the meeting through the window. The union officials told the attendants also that they insisted on keeping today’s meeting limited in numbers, though hundreds more wanted to attend, so as not to “disrupt work in the company, and not to stir troubles with the security.”

One of the things I thought was extremely interesting was one flight attendant who stood up during the meeting, shouting angrily at his union officials saying: “If we want to get our rights, we have to act as the textile workers.”