The workers at Ghazl Shebeen el-Kom suspended their strike last night, after the Indian management finally agreed to pay the strikers’ their rightly deserved annual bonus.
UPDATE: Here’s a DNE report by Sarah Carr:
Workers at the Indorama textiles factory in Shibeen El-Kom have ended their 11-day strike after winning their demand for payment of an annual bonus.
“The strike has ended and workers are now returning to work,” electrical engineer Ehab Shalaby told Daily News Egypt Monday morning.
The factory’s workforce of roughly 4,000 workers downed tools on March 5, 2009 in protest at Indorama chairman Narindra Malbany’s refusal to grant them an annual bonus paid in March each year.
Malbany said that the “global economic crisis” prevented Indorama from paying the annual bonus.
“Malbany has signed a written pledge in the presence of manpower minister Aisha Abdel-Hady promising that all the bonuses will be paid by Thursday morning,” Shalaby said.
The news was confirmed by Indorama’s administrative manager Emad Abdel Khaliq.
This strike was the 96th industrial protest staged by workers since the factory was privatized and bought by Indonesian-based Indorama in 2006.