Tag: mahalla

Ghazl el-Mahalla workers demonstrate against management

Posted on By 3arabawy

Demonstrations broke out today inside the Ghazl el-Mahalla Company, as workers protested today against the chairman of the state-owned company Mahmoud el-Gebally, amid a propaganda campaign by the managers of the company sectors to try to persuade the workers not to pursue his overthrow at the coming General Assembly, according to an activist source.

Workers from the 1st and the 2nd shift took part in the protest which started around 3:30pm and lasted for half an hour. The number of participants varied in reports from 1500 to 3000.

55,000 Tax officers on strike; 3,000 demonstrating in Nasr City

Posted on By 3arabawy

Around 3,000 tax officers are now assembling in front of HQ of the Finance Ministry (Imtidad Ramses St., which links Abbassiya with Nasr City). Elsewhere work stopped at virtually all Real Estate Tax offices, with around 55,000 tax officers taking part in the strike calling for improving their work conditions and their inclusion to the Finance Ministry.

The demonstrators in Nasr City have come from Cairo, Giza, Fayoum, Menoufiya, Bani swief, Minya, Daqahliya, Beheira, in buses, and are chanting against Finance Minister Youssef Boutross Ghali, and Ismail Abdel Rasoul, the head of the Real Estate Tax Administration.

More interestingly, according to a journalist who’s present at the protest, the tax officers are also chanting:

مش حنخاف.. مش حنخاف.. مش لاقيين العيش الحاف
We won’t be afraid.. We won’t be afraid.. We can’t find bread
هما مين وإحنا مين؟ هما بياكلوا حمام وفراخ وإحنا الفول دوخنا وداخ
Who are them, and who are we? They eat pigeons and chickens, while we get headaches from beans

The second chant is a popular line from one of Ahmad Fouad Negm’s poems, and both were chanted in last month’s victorious Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, which was widely covered by the local independent and opposition press. The domino effect is at work.