There were 14 new labor protests in the second week of May, as well as another seven industrial actions which continued from before, according to the new report by the Egyptian Workers and Trade Union Watch.
Tag: workers
Labor updates
Yesterday 1500 workers went on strike at the privately-owned Iron Industries factory in the 6th of October City, over allowances and work conditions. The company is owned by Unsi Sawiris. The strike started by the end of the first work shift at 3pm and was joined by the workers of the second shift, lasting till 8pm. The strike ended with the management promising the workers they’ll respond to their demands with the beginning of the financial year (end of July).
Also yesterday, microbus drivers went on strike in Qalyoubiya, north of Cairo, protesting fines imposed by the province governor, while in the western oasis of Fayoum around 1,000 farmers demonstrated in front of the Fayoum Sugar Factory protesting the company’s delay in buying their crop.
Today, the workers at the state-owned Light Means of Transportation Production Company (which assembles motorcycles and bikes) staged a sit-in at 4pm. The industrial action ended around 7pm.
I don’t know the number of the workers involved (but I think they may be around one thousand). You can click on the banner below to download a statement by the Workers Coordination Committee which includes the workers’ demands.
The WCC had put this statement earlier in the day when the sit-in started. I learned later from a socialist activist that the sit-in ended around 7pm with the govt meeting some of the workers’ demands. Still no details available.
Meanwhile, the Mansoura-España Garments Company workers factory occupation continues. The workers do not trust the deal reached between the MPs, Labor Ministry and the bank owners, so they are continuing their sit-in fearing Al-Masraf Al-Muttahid Bank will shut down their source of income.
Cement workers update
The early buy-out packages negotiations reached a dead end yesterday with militant trade unionists representing Suez, Tora and Helwan Cement workers rightly raising the ceiling of their demands to discourage the Italian management from cutting down the labor force in the company, following the December strikes.
The Factory Union Committee officials, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, deliberately gave the management a set of high-ceiling demands they knew would be refused. While union officials played a sabotaging, pro-govt role in most of the current strikes, there are cases where few independent Factory Union Committees took the side of the workers, including the above mentioned cement companies.