Tag: fayoum

Labor updates

Posted on By 3arabawy

Yesterday 1500 workers went on strike at the privately-owned Iron Industries factory in the 6th of October City, over allowances and work conditions. The company is owned by Unsi Sawiris. The strike started by the end of the first work shift at 3pm and was joined by the workers of the second shift, lasting till 8pm. The strike ended with the management promising the workers they’ll respond to their demands with the beginning of the financial year (end of July).

Also yesterday, microbus drivers went on strike in Qalyoubiya, north of Cairo, protesting fines imposed by the province governor, while in the western oasis of Fayoum around 1,000 farmers demonstrated in front of the Fayoum Sugar Factory protesting the company’s delay in buying their crop.

Today, the workers at the state-owned Light Means of Transportation Production Company (which assembles motorcycles and bikes) staged a sit-in at 4pm. The industrial action ended around 7pm.

I don’t know the number of the workers involved (but I think they may be around one thousand). You can click on the banner below to download a statement by the Workers Coordination Committee which includes the workers’ demands.

The WCC had put this statement earlier in the day when the sit-in started. I learned later from a socialist activist that the sit-in ended around 7pm with the govt meeting some of the workers’ demands. Still no details available.

Meanwhile, the Mansoura-España Garments Company workers factory occupation continues. The workers do not trust the deal reached between the MPs, Labor Ministry and the bank owners, so they are continuing their sit-in fearing Al-Masraf Al-Muttahid Bank will shut down their source of income.

Fayoum trade unionist sacked

Posted on By 3arabawy

Thirty-four-year-old Ashraf Abdel Wanis is a father of four, who’s been working at the administrative affairs department of the state-owned Fayoum Sugar factory for nine years. His monthly basic salary is LE221.66, which goes up to LE638 with the bonuses and allowances.

Ashraf Abdel Wanis, Trade Unionist at Fayoum Sugar Company أشرف عبد الونيس، النقابي بشركة الفيوم للسكر

The company has 500 workers on contracts, and another 200 on a seasonal basis. The factory works at its full capacity, during the sugar beads season, which lasts between February and June.

The factory witnessed a two-day strike in June 2006, during which Ashraf and his colleagues played a leading role, over a number of demands including increasing the LE1 daily food allowance to LE5, and forming a branch for the General Union for Food Industries at the factory, among other demands (There were 14 demands in total). The management agreed to increase the daily food allowance only to LE2, and allowed the workers to form a Factory Union Committee, whose elections took place last fall, promising to look into the rest of the demands that had to do with workers’ shares of profits. Ashraf managed to win a union seat.

The management, using carrots and sticks, managed to impose an engineer by the name Khaled Abu Bakr as the Factory Union Committee’s president. He, together with the management, have been launching a witch-hunt against Ashraf and others involved in last year’s strike, especially as the latter were lobbying for increasing the shares of workers in the annual profits made by the company, as well as increasing the transportation and housing allowances.

On 5 March, Ashraf was transferred to another department within the factory. The manamgent suspended him from his job on 10 March, and sacked him finally on 22 March, alleging he had not shown up for work without medical notice.

In an interview to Al-Massa’ia on 21 March, however, Khaled Abu Bakr, the pro-management head of the Factory Union Committee stated that “Ashraf Abdel Wanis was transferred to a disciplinary board for investigating his role in agitating the workers about profit shares.”

Ashraf is filing a lawsuit, and planning to stage a sit-in, together with other trade unionists at the General Union for Food Industries, in Nasr City, next week if the Labor Ministry does not get involved to revoke the management’s dismissal decree.