Tag: workers

Director of labor rights group, freelance journalist sentenced to one year for defamation

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Daily Star Egypt:

Kamal Abbas, the director of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services (CTUWS), a high-profile labor rights group shut down by the authorities last winter, was sentenced to one year in prison for defamation.
The case was filed against both him and a freelance writer for the group’s magazine, after it published allegations of corruption against a Cairo youth center which later proved to be true.
Both Abbas and the writer, Muhammad Helmy, were sentenced by the Helwan Misdemeanor Court, but remain free pending an appeal which will be heard on Dec. 26.
The charges were published in Kalam Sanay’iya, the magazine of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services, which was shut down in March after the state accused it of threatening national security by encouraging workers to strike.
In the article, Helmy alleged that the management of the 15th of May Youth Center was corrupt, and laid the blame on Muhammad Mustafa Ibrahim, the chairman of its board and a member of the National Democratic Party who was once a parliamentary candidate.
When the article appeared, Ibrahim sued both Helmy and Abbas for “public abuse” and “defamation of his capacity as a public representative.”
The author claimed inside knowledge of the center’s operations because he was also a member of its board of directors, and, along with four other board members filed a complaint against Ibrahim before Cairo governor Abdel Azim Wazir last year.
Wazir assigned a task force to investigate the charges, which released a report last January confirming Helmy’s allegations of financial misconduct and recommending that Ibrahim be removed from his position.

“The strikes are a new fashion threatening all of Egypt’s companies”

Posted on By 3arabawy

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.

Historic victory for Egyptian workers at Mahalla textile plant

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Socialist Worker:

They brought drums and homemade placards, set up a sea of tents in the factory grounds and turned the forecourt of the mill into a week-long mass meeting.
While riot police gathered outside, 27,000 workers occupied the giant Ghazl al-Mahalla textile plant north of the Egyptian capital Cairo last week, demanding the government fulfill its promise to pay a bonus equivalent to 150 days’ pay.
Within a week workers forced President Hosni Mubarak’s regime into a humiliating retreat.