The food processing workers sit-in enters its third day in Suez, despite security intimidation, while in Cairo the head of the regime-controlled General Union of Transportation Workers Wagih Mustafa Amin accused “Kefaya elements” of standing behind the latest public transportation strike.
Tag: workers
Cement workers stage sit-in south of Cairo
More than 500 workers at el-Qawmiya Cement Company in Helwan staged a sit-in Sunday morning, in front of the office building of the CEO Nabil el-Gabri, demanding their full annual bonuses.
The workers were entitled to a total profit share of LE30 millions (roughly 10% of the LE306 million profits made by the company the previous year). In addition to the cash sums, part of this money should be allocated to the housing and social services. The management only paid LE13 millions, triggering industrial action from the workers today. The Factory Union Committee apparently lobbied for only another LE7 millions, which was refused by the workers, who demanded the full remaining LE13 millions.
The director of the Helwan State Security Bureau Officer Ashraf Shura showed up at the factory in person, and negotiated with the workers. The sit-in was disbanded around 5pm, after Shura promised the workers their demands will be met. The workers also chanted against their Factory Union Committee officials, calling for their impeachment.
[Above: An undated photo of the director of Helwan’s State Security bureau Officer Ashraf Shura, seen above in brown plainclothes. He was involved in torturing labor writer Mostafa Bassiouny, by beatings and electric shocks in 1999. Photo courtesy of Egyptian blogger Ahmad Abdel Fattah.]
Public Transportation workers on strike
Photographer Amr Abdallah managed to take some photos of the strike by drivers, bus clerks, and maintenance workers of the Public Transportation Authorities in Nasr City on Wednesday.
Amr was not allowed into the station, which was under the police siege. He managed to meet up with some of the strikers’ colleagues outside.