workers archives — Page 425 of 485

Mahalla updates

Posted on 22/06/200715/01/2021 By 3arabawy

I finally received a copy of the statements distributed in the Ghazl el-Mahalla last Tuesday and Wednesday.

Both statements are agitating for a sit-in on 21 July if demands related to work conditions and housing are not met. The first is signed by “The 7th of December Movement- Workers For Change,” in reference to 7 December 2006, when a 27,000-strong strike brought the factory to halt causing an upturn in industrial militancy. The statement starts by affirming that this previously unknown entity is not affiliated with any political or religious group, refuses to recognize the corrupt Egyptian General Federation of Trade Unions (EGFTU) officials, and then blasts the “ruling regime” for “selling Egypt with the lowest price,” for corruption, rigging elections, and repression.

And below is the second statement, calling for a sit-in, and demanding the impeachment of the company’s CEO:

What is interesting is the name this previously unknown group has picked for itself. “Workers For Change” was Kefaya’s not-that-successful attempt to link the anti-Mubarak campaign with working class struggle championed by the radical left. Its representatives did not perform well during the labor union elections in fall 2006, and not necessarily because of the security interventions. But the wave of strikes instigated by Ghazl el-Mahalla’s truimphant industrial action last December, produced some political impact… whether it’s the demand to impeach the corrupt, state-sponsored trade unionists and the threats to launch an independent national labor union parallel to Mubarak’s EGFTU by the most advanced sections in the movement, or the “Workers For Change” statements we are receiving from places like Kafr el-Dawar and now Ghazl el-Mahalla that is slowly adopting the lingo of the radical left even if it is not necessarily affiliated organizationally with the current operating leftist groups.

Mansoura-España crisis update

Posted on 21/06/200707/02/2021 By 3arabawy

It’s 3pm, the workers received their May salaries, their social bonuses and May Day grants for the year 2006. The workers are refusing to leave the factory however before they receive an official document from the management stating the latter received the factory in a good condition.

“Tomorrow is Friday, the day off. The management can sabotage the machines, and then blame us on Saturday when we show up,” said one of the female garment workers in a telephone interview.

I asked another male worker, also on the phone, what they would do on Saturday, and whether there were any production orders they would work on. “No, we have not received a single production order from the management in a month and half, as the bank was planning to liquidate the firm. We will show up on time on Saturday, and stay in the factory from 7am to 3pm. If the management brings us a production order, we’ll resume work right away. If there is not, then we will stay in the factory.”

Asked about the workers’ response if they showed up on Saturday only to find their company closed down, the male worker said they were planning to protest outside the company and blockade the highway in front of the factory, while the female worker asserted they were planning to storm the factory again and occupy it if the United Bank betrays the agreement.

VICTORY for the Mansoura-España workers! إنتصـــار عمال وعاملات المنصورة-أسبانيا

Posted on 21/06/200707/02/2021 By 3arabawy

I received more details about the agreement struck yesterday at the parliament between the parties involved in the Mansoura-España Gamrnets Company crisis.

The agreement to be in effect starting today, was brokered in a meeting that included: Hussein Megawer, the head of General Federation of Trade Unions, Muhammad Adel el-Sanhoury and Haitham Ahmad Atef of the United Bank, Nahed el-Ashry of the Labor Ministry, Said el-Gohary, the head of the General Union of Textile Workers, and head of the Factory Union Committee Hamdi el-Maghrabi and his deputy Adel Hassaballah.

1- The workers’ May salaries will be paid today. The June salaries will be paid next Thursday.
2-The May Day grants from 1 July 2006 to 31 May 2007 will be paid today (LE10 per month = LE110 for each worker)
3-The social bonuses for the year 2006 will be paid, with a minimum LE30… Moreover it will be paid to all workers, whether they have contracts or not.
4-(MORE IMPORTANTLY) The Company WILL NOT BE LIQUIDATED. The United Bank pledged work will continue in the factory. If the bank fails to pump investments into the company and decides to sell it, the selling agreement must include guarantees from the new investor to keep the company going without firing a single worker, or cutting (the already ultra-low) the workers’ salaries. This means the bank cannot sell the company, as rumoured, to the neighboring Delta Academy as a real estate property to be razed.
5-No worker who took part in the industrial action will be victimized. The sacking decrees given to trade unionist Mohsen el-Sha’er and the five women workers are revoked.
6-A committee, headed by Hussein Megawer, has been formed to supervise the implementation of the agreement including the officials, managers and trade unionists who were present in the parliamentary session. This committee will also look into the rest of the workers’ demands that have to do with the unpaid bonuses and May Day grants (now prior to 2006).

The workers in the factory are expected to disband their sit-in today, after they receive their May salaries. “We are optimistic this time,” a worker told me over the phone. “We are happy there will be no victimization, and that the company will continue. Where else would we have gone? The street? The management now knows what we are capable of. We will disband the sit-in after we get paid tomorrow (i.e., Thursday). If they don’t give us the rest of our rights we will occupy the factory again.”

MABROUK for the Mansoura-España workers! Mabrouk for the women workers who were braver and more militant than their male colleagues throughout those two months. Mabrouk for those who want to see the women of our country empowered in the social and economic spheres. The women’s struggle at that factory was a clear proof that the fight for the liberation of women is not a fight to take away the veil or the niqab. Virtually all the women in the Talkha factory were veiled and few were in niqab, but they left their families and slept outside their homes, sharing one roof with their male colleagues, which is a bloody TABOO for women in Egypt, even those upper-class secular feminists in Cairo. It’s not about that bloody piece of cloth (though I support neither of the veil nor the niqab), but I’m not gonna waist my time debating those liberal feminists over that question.. they can go to Farouk Honsi instead and he’ll be all ears… Ya Farouk, you who equated the veil with backwardness, can you see what the veiled women in Mansoura-España did? Was that backwardness? The source of backwardness in this country are people like you, Suzan and the National Council of Women who have reduced women’s liberation to the Rotary and the Cairo Capital Club meetings, Shame on you!

The workers in the Mansoura-España factory would like to send their warmest regards to all the journalists and activists who stood by them. And they ask you to keep an eye on the factory, lest the United Bank betrays the agreement.

Now those women can go back to their homes, with their heads up high, they have gone through so much hardship, but they won.

Can we expect women who were definitely toughened by that experience to accept abuse when they go back to their husbands and families? Will they, let’s say, get slapped on the face now, and stay silent?! I’m willing to bet on anything that those women’s lives have changed by 180 degrees, thanks to their struggle at the factory.

If a woman managed to stay in a factory for that long, resisting intimidation from the government, the management, the police, and social stigmas, would she just go back home to the same old shit!? Hell no! The only way to empower our country’s women are these joint struggles from below.

Mabrouk! Mabrouk! Mabrouk!