Tag: menoufiya

Dismissed Ghazl Shebeen workers launch hunger strike

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports for the Daily News Egypt:

Five workers from the Indorama textiles factory in Shibeen El-Kom, Menoufiya, launched a hunger strike on Friday after four were fired and one threatened verbally that his employment will be terminated.
Ihab Shalaby, an Indorama employee, told Daily News Egypt that Ahmad El-Aasar, Ayman El-Seessy, Abdel Aziz Bekhatro and Ahmad Askar have been fired while Samir El-Qazaz has been verbally threatened with dismissal.
The men launched the hunger strike on Friday, and according to one worker contacted by Daily News Egypt are currently in hospital.
The Tadamon activist group reported Monday that they had been prevented from visiting the men in the hospital by security bodies.
The protest is the latest in a series of actions taken by workers since the company’s privatization in 2006 against alleged mismanagement and violation of workers’ rights.
Bekhatro was one of four workers who in May presented a complaint to the Ministry of Manpower against “illegal” transfer orders issued against them.
Ragab El-Shimy, Abdel Aziz Bekhatro, Moussa Naggar and Fadel Abdel Fadeel were transferred to Indorama’s warehouse in Alexandria from the company’s Shibeen El-Kom factory after the orders were issued at the beginning of May.
Alexandria is some 150 km away from Shibeen El-Kom and transferred workers say they have not been provided with transport or accommodation.
According to Shalaby three of the men have been fired on the “pretext” that they were not performing their duties adequately while Bekhatro was dismissed “because of a misdemeanors conviction in 1991 which expired a long time ago.”
Workers allege that the dismissals and transfers are part of a management campaign against workers involved in industrial activity within the factory.
Speaking to Daily News Egypt in May, Indorama’s administrative manager Emad Abdel-Khaleq said that the decision to transfer the four workers in May was both because of a need for staff in the Alexandria warehouse and as a disciplinary measure.
He alleged that the four workers were “creating unrest” and agitating for other workers to strike.
In March Indorama’s 3,000 workers downed tools after company chairman Narinda Malbany refused to grant them an annual bonus paid in March each year.
The 11-day strike – the 96th industrial protest staged by workers since the factory was privatized – ended after management agreed to pay the bonus.

Ghazl Shebeen workers transferred ‘to teach them a lesson,’ says manager

Posted on By 3arabawy

Sarah Carr reports:

Four workers at the Indorama textiles factory in Shibeen El-Kom, Menoufiya, are being transferred to the company’s Alexandria warehouse.
Workers allege the decision is a punitive measure taken in response to an 11-day strike at the factory in March.
“Management claims that they’re doing this because they need the manpower in the warehouse. However, all the workers being transferred were involved in the strike,” Indorama employee Ihab Shalaby explained.
Indorama’s administrative manager Emad Abdel-Khaleq confirmed that the transfer is a disciplinary measure. But the decision, he added, also corresponds to human resources shortage at the Alexandria warehouse.
According to Shalaby, the transferred workers should go to Alexandria on Saturday.
They, however, will not be provided with transport or accommodation, he added.
Alexandria is approximately 150 km from Shibeen El-Kom.
Workers launched a strike in the early hours of Monday morning to protest the decision. The strike was called off at 10:30 am on Wednesday while negotiations continue.
“Negotiations between management, the manpower ministry and the trade union are ongoing. The company trade union committee however has resigned in protest at the way negotiations are progressing,” Shalaby said.
However, Abdel-Khaleq gives a different version of events.
He says that workers went on strike against a police inquiry launched against a worker alleged to have deliberately destroyed a punch card machine that logs working hours.
“Why would you stand in solidarity with a colleague who destroyed something in the factory? That’s your money too,” Abdel-Khaleq commented.
The administrative manager says that the four workers being transferred are being sent to Alexandria both because of a need for staff in the company warehouse, and as a disciplinary measure.
He says that the four workers were “creating unrest” in the factory and encouraging other workers to strike.
“The manager in Alexandria told us that he needed people so we sent these four. Why them in particular? Because they’re in the wrong and troublemakers.”
Daily News Egypt asked Abdel-Khaleq whether Indorama workers have the right to strike.
“Of course they don’t. They can’t strike without reason like this. There are administrative channels to resolve problems. You can’t stop a factory of 3,000 workers just for four people who are well-known troublemakers, and who are turning everything upside down with their trouble-making,” Abdel-Khaleq said.
Asked why Indorama does not terminate their employment if the company believes these workers have committed transgressions, Abdel Khaliq said, “We don’t want to do that. The transfer is meant to teach them a lesson, to make them understand that they’ve done something wrong.”
He would neither confirm nor deny whether the transfers are permanent.

This factory should be re-nationalized.