Interviews with the strikers:
Tag: mahalla
Mahalla Update
I couldn’t get to my Mahalla contacts to confirm this, but it seems the Al-Masry Al-Youm report about the prosecutor summoning 20 Ghazl el-Mahalla workers is not correct, according to a media source in Cairo.
The 20 names are the original list of names that were wanted by (or mentioned in the report of) the prosecutor when the strike was ongoing. The prosecutor is closing off the case, the activist journalist I spoke with said.
“The strikes are a new fashion threatening all of Egypt’s companies”
The Tanta Flax and Oils Company workers scored a victory, suspending their sit-in after they achieved most of their demands.
And as soon as this dispute was settled, 700 textile workers went on strike in Damietta Spinning and Weaving Company demanding their annual profit shares. The chairman of the company, is quoted by Al-Masry Al-Youm as saying: “Strikes have become a fashion that threatens the Egyptian factories”
More details could also be found in this AFP report:
Egypt struggled Tuesday to stem a rising tide of industrial action as officials rushed to end the third strike in a week, the latest challenge to President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.
Labour ministry officials met employee representatives at the Damietta Spinning and Weaving Co to come to an agreement just 24 hours after workers kicked off their strike, the official MENA news agency said.
Labour Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi told reporters she was eager to “protect the interests and rights of the workers.”
On Saturday, some 24,000 workers at the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Co ended their strike over unpaid profit shares and low wages after the government agreed to meet their demands.
The same pattern followed at the Tanta Linseed and Oil factory, where hundreds of workers struck to demand unpaid profit shares, with their demands swiftly met.
“The strikes are a new fashion threatening all of Egypt’s companies,” the chairman of the Damietta factory told the independent daily al-Masry al-Youm.