Helwan University Resistance Students are launching a new campaign today.
Tag: helwan
Tora Cement workers win pay victory after protest
The Tora Cement workers’ sit-in ended in victory, Sarah Carr reports:
Workers at the Tora Cement plant have reached an agreement regarding one of their demands concerning pay and conditions after staging a protest Monday.
Some 200 workers had assembled in the factory on Monday morning.
Shabaan Ezzat, a trade union member, told Daily News Egypt that the Tora Cement company — owned by the Italcementi group since 2005 — had failed to renew an agreement organizing employment relations.
“There was an agreement in force which ended on Dec. 31, 2008. A new agreement should be put in place,” Ezzat said.
“The agreement organizes relations between them [company management] and us: it describes our rights and their obligations. It should have been renewed on Jan. 1, 2009 but they have postponed this until June,” Ezzat continued.
Workers were also demanding that their paid leave entitlement be calculated on the basis of total salaries.
“Over the course of the past six months new demands emerged. We want holiday entitlements to be based on our total salary including bonus payments. But they say no — holiday entitlements are calculated without bonus payments,” Ezzat explained.
According to Ezzat, company management agreed to this demand on Monday afternoon.
Management has not however shifted its position regarding the agreement governing labor relations — it will not be renewed earlier than June.
Workers also say that the Tora Cement company employs around 400 non-permanent workers on contract.
Union member Ali El-Shafei alleged that this policy is adopted so that the company “does not have to pay for their benefits.”
The Tora Cement company could not be reached for comment.
In December 2006 over 1,000 Tora Cement workers launched a successful strike after company management refused to pay them a bonus.
Several labor leaders launched a hunger strike during the action, including Ezzat.
“We are used to company management not responding to our demands, despite the fact that we point out to them what the law says and don’t ask for anything other than what we are legally entitled to,” Ezzat said.
“We’ve been in discussions with them for a month and a half now and nothing has changed…Management only responds to workers’ demands when we take a stance like this, when we stage protests. Otherwise they ignore us completely,” he continued.
Helwan, Mansoura students protest police, education fees
Another day of protests in the Egyptian universities, with Mansoura and Helwan coming under police siege from the early morning.
Police cracked down on Mansoura students, kidnapping an activist, by the name Motaz Adel, on his way out of the university following the protests. Another two students were picked up by the gestapo in Alexandria.
UPDATE: Motaz and the two Alexandrian students have been released.
UPDATE: A report by Sarah Carr on yesterday’s Cairo U protest:
Students renewed their demands for free education and an end to the presence of Interior Ministry security forces on university campuses Saturday, during a demonstration at Cairo University.
“Security bodies ban any and all political, cultural and intellectual activity inside universities. They want to create a generation of young people incapable of saying anything except ‘yes’ to Mubarak Senior and Junior,” Mostafa Shawky, a member of the Haqqy (My Right) Socialist student movement said during the protest.
Cairo University student and Haqqy member Ashraf Omar said that the removal of Interior Ministry police from campuses is students’ main priority.
“We want to link student issues with wider issues in Egyptian society.
Students form part of a society and must take part in its political life. So our most pressing demand is the removal of Interior Ministry security forces from campuses so that we can increase student activity,” Omar said.
He linked the Egyptian government’s domestic policy with its position on regional issues.
“The regime which contains us by the ‘remote control’ of its security bodies is the same regime which is placing Palestine under siege,” Omar said.