The meeting scheduled today between the Labor Ministry officials, Mansoura-España trade unionists and the representatives of the United Bank was canceled, after the latter claimed they were “busy” and “had not time to show up” to discuss the workers’ problems.
Around 250 workers from the Mansoura-España Garments company staged a sit-in from 8am to 6pm at their factory gate on Monday, demanding the revoking of the sacking decree against trade unionist Mohsen el-Sha’er and denouncing the management’s betrayal of the agreement brokered last year.
El-Sha’er, 34, was investigated by the company management last Saturday on charges of “talking to the press.” On the following day he was banned from entering the factory by the company security, triggering a demonstration at the gate by the (largely female) work force. The protesters blocked the gate in the face of El-Sayyed Galal, one of the managers. Officials from the owning United Bank failed to show up for a scheduled meeting yesterday at the office of Nahed el-Ashri, the Labor Minister’s secretary, that included the company trade unionists and labor ministry officials.
The latest crisis is happening amid fury in the factory over the management’s betrayal of the agreement brokered last year after a two month occupation of the factory by the workers. The management only paid the workers their May Day grants and social raises for the year 2007, and stalled paying the grants and raises unpaid from 1999 to 2006. And although the bank had promised to inject money into the firm and revive the production operations, the total time spent on production orders over the past year amounted to roughly one month, according to el-Sha’er. Everyday the workers show up at the factory, and wait in vain from 8am to 3pm for production ordres, but nothing comes. The workers are also concerned as news emerged that the company was sold on the first of June of this year to MP Youssri Moughazi who has already declared that he was not responsible for paying the workers any of their overdue rights.
The sit in at the factory is expected to resume today at 8am.
The Egyptian Workers and Trade Unions Watch issued a report on the sit-in staged by the textile workers of Wabariyat Sammanoud, who occupied their factory from 13 to 19 April, demanding raising their food allowance from LE43 to LE90 similar to that decreed to Ghazl el-Mahalla by the govt, as well as receiving the 15 day bonus that Nazif announced for the textile sector following the abortion of the Ghazl el-Mahalla 6th of April Strike. The Sammanoud occupation ended in victory.
But one thing to note about the factory is that out of its 1,300 labor force, there are 750 female workers according the EWTUW. They had a leading role in the protests, and were joined by their children in the factory, where they slept at night on the tiles covered with cardboards in horrible conditions. Still they held out. The resilience of the women workers in the ongoing industrial actions is just impressive.
I received also some updates on the Mansoura España Garments Company, from Francesca, an AUC grad student researching Egyptian labor and gender:
On Sunday April 20, the 250 workers of Mansoura-España received the news that the firm had been sold by the majority shareholder United Bank to Parliament Member and business man Yousry Faris (Al Masri al Yawm) or Yousry El-Moghazy (Al Dustour). The MP is also the owner of the Delta Academy, which flanks the Mansoura-España grounds, as well as factories in 6 October and Port Said. According to Amal, a worker at the factory who participated in the workers’ 2-month sit-in almost exactly a year ago, the MP announced that he would not be responsible for honoring the agreements reached between the bank, the firm, and the local factory union that had brought that action to a close. He reportedly offered the workers employment at his other factories, an impossible prospect for workers who are mostly based in Talkha, Mansoura, and neighboring villages.
Last year’s agreement delivered increased wages and partial payment of the yearly bonus payments that had been owed to the workers since 1996. However, workers say they have still not been compensated in full. More than these unfulfilled promises, it is the sale of the company and the prospect of losing their jobs that has again brought the Mansoura-España workers to the stage of collective action. Al Masri al Yawm reports that they have threatened to sustain the sit-in until their demands are answered, but their prospects as a medium-sized private sector firm do not appear strong. Amal reports that for the workers (the majority of which are women) another action involving the overnight occupation of the factory will be socially difficult.
Last year’s sit in garnered much media attention for the strong efforts of the female workers who slept in the factory to sustain the sit-in. Many of these women faced serious chastisement or punishment from their family members, who disapprove of women being absent from their household responsibilities and/or for spending the night with their male co-workers. It was the fact that these women participated at this level that made last year’s strike feasible – many of the male workers at the company work additional jobs (because the Mansoura-España wages are particularly low) and would leave the sit-in to go to them.
Amal says that negotiations between the new owner and the factory union (which has close interpersonal relationships with the factory management) will take place in the next two weeks. Note that this threatened strike action takes place concurrently with strikes at private Delta textile companies Sigad Damanhour and Wobreyat Samanoud, but with very different stated goals — workers at Damanhour and Samanoud are claiming the grants and bonuses promised by PM Nazif to the workers of Ghazl al-Mahalla two weeks ago.
I called up a contact in the factory. He said they went on a strike for two days on the 19th and 20th. The strike was disbanded on afternoon of the 20th after an agreement was reached between the strikers on the one hand, and the Labor Ministry officials, a State Security officer by the name Baher, Officers from the Talkha Police Station and a representative from the United Bank whose first name is Nader on the other, by which the United Bank was given 15 days to pay the rest of bonuses and May Day grants. The worker also expressed concerns over new that Moghazi is stepping in to buy the company, since he is one of the shareholders in the neighboring Delta Academy (which is primarily owned by Muhammad Rabi’e, who wants to acquire the factory land, demolish it, to expand the academy campus. The workers in the factory are not kept in the loop about the managements plans. The sale of their factory is not confirmed officially up till now, according to the worker I spoke with, but “it looks like it’s coming. That will be a different story. We have to get our unpaid rights first, completely, all of them, and then see what we’ll do with the future of the company.”
In other news, Sarah Carr reports on a dentists’ protest that was foiled by Mubarak’s pigs.
