women archives — Page 26 of 45

Mansoura-España Updates

Posted on 18/06/200831/03/2021 By 3arabawy

I traveled with some friends to the Nile Delta town of Talkha today to visit the Mansoura-España Garments Company workers, who are facing a new onslaught from the management, which not only betrayed the agreement brokered last year, but also sacked on Sunday trade unionist Mohsen el-Sha’er for “speaking to the media” about the work hardships.

Initially we were denied access to the factory by the security, acting at the behest of the management, who went ahead and locked up the workers inside to prevent them from coming out to meet us. Few minutes to 2pm, the workers stormed their way out using another exit [located at the company warehouses], and brought us inside the factory.

There’s bitterness among virtually all the workers, who feel they’ve been let down by everyone: The management, Labor Ministry and the state-backed General Federation of Trade Unions.

From a 1,200-strong labor force in 2006 and a monthly production exports of at least 6,000 pieces of garments to clients around the world, including the US, the number of workers went down in 2007 to 287 workers, and now it’s 250 only. The dwindling numbers are a result of sackings or resignations over the dismal work conditions. The management also does not bring them any more production orders, with the aim of liquidating the business.

The average basic monthly salary of the workers ranges between LE150 to 200 [USD28 to 37]. And they were neither paid their Social Bonuses nor May Day grants from 1999 to 2006.

The workers were only paid these grants and bonuses for the year 2007, when the management and the govt were terrified by their factory occupation last year.

I’ll write more later, but for now you can check out more background info about the factory in this dossier and Flickr set.

The Mahalla April 6 Uprising: ‘It was ONE woman who started the intifada’

Posted on 13/06/200807/02/2021 By 3arabawy

I’ve just come back home after a six-hour meeting with a number of labor organizers who were involved in the 6 April Uprising. I wanted to get more details about the Mahalla intifada and fill in some holes in the stories and reports. I’m in the process of collecting testimonies and I’m hoping in the near future I’ll be able to put together a longer posting.

But, one story I wanna share with you now is about the trigger of the uprising. What we read in all news reports is that the demonstration that took place in Mahalla’s El-Shoun Sq which launched the uprising was spontaneous. But the accounts of how this “spontaneous” demo came about remained vague and on occasions conflicting. According to what I heard today from the labor organizers:

The whole town was looking to the (Ghazl el-Mahalla) factory that day… with people walking by the factory compound, looking and waiting for the workers to come out on strike.. Everyone knew about the strike.. I mean everyone in the town.. And what happened in February was expected to be repeated on a larger scale this time… At least one car accident occurred near the factory and there was some funeral passing by too.. and in each of these occasions people will spontaneously gather around them thinking it might have been the workers from the compound who started the strike and were now marching.. As soon as they’d find out it wasn’t a demo they would disperse in the nearby alleys, but still had their eyes on the factory waiting in uncertainty. Meanwhile, inside the factory the security forces had already occupied it, and isolated the sections from one another to make sure if any agitation started in one section it would never spill over to the other… The Textile Workers’ League activists who were to lead the strike were rounded up and taken to State Security Police HQ…
Sometime around 3:30pm, however, ONE woman stood in El-Shoun Sq, and she started shouting slurs against Mubarak and his family, saying she couldn’t afford the prices of basic commodities any more… Few minutes later a child ran to her and started chanting against the increase of prices of sugar and cooking oil… A guy from the police showed up, and physically assaulted the woman, slapping and kicking her…. And that’s when the spontaneous demonstration by the youth in the square came about … So you can say that it was the women who started the December (2006) Strike, and it was one woman who started the (April) Intifada.

The identity of the woman however is disputed. Some said she was a woman from the garments section in the factory, while another activist denied that and said she was just a town resident. More stories from the Mahalla Uprising will follow in the coming postings.

Labor Updates

Posted on 21/04/200807/02/2021 By 3arabawy

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.