Thousands of workers across Egypt have gone on strike, demanding better pay, benefits and working conditions in added turmoil amid the country’s anti-government protests, MSNBC reported.
Suez Canal Company workers began an open-ended strike in front of the company’s headquarters in Ismailia City, Egypt, on Wednesday. The canal stayed open as everal hundred workers demonstrated, demanding the resignation of their immediate boss, a pay rise and social equality. (AP photo)
The labor movement that mushroomed on Feb. 9 could add new momentum to mass demonstrations against embattled President Hosni Mubarak. The protesters in Cairo want Mubarak’s ouster, saying his regime is riddled with corruption and Egypt has become a nation of growing poverty.
In Mahalla, more than 1500 workers of the Abu El-Subaa company in Mahalla demonstrated on Feb. 9, cutting the road and demanding their salaries, according to Ahram Online. The workers have staged repeated sit-ins for two years, demanding their rights and mediation between the workers and the company’s owner, Ismail Abu El-Subaa.
More than 2000 workers from the Sigma pharmaceutical company in the city of Quesna have gone on strike demanding higher wages and benefits that have been suspended for years. The workers are also calling for the dismissal of managers who have ill-treated workers.
In Cairo, sanitation workers demonstrated around their headquarters in Dokki. And more than a hundred journalists gathered in the lobby of a media outlet, denouncing corruption, calling for more press freedom and demanding benefits for two colleagues killed in the Tahrir Square protests.
Around 5000 unemployed youths demonstrated Feb. 9 in front of Aswan governorate building, which they tried to storm. The protesters chanted their demand that the governor be dismissed.
An estimated 5000 employees of the state-owned telecommunications giant, Telecom Egypt, staged protest stands in three different locations across the city–the Smart Village, Ramses Square, and Opera Square, according to almasryalyoum.com. Shady Malek, an engineer with the company said, “We protested today for the establishment of an adequate minimum wage and maximum wage for our company’s employees and administrators.”
Around 350 workers from the Egyptian Cement Company–whose factory is located along the Qattamiya-Ain al-Sokhna Highway–staged protest stands at their factory and outside their company’s headquarters in Qattamiya on Feb. 8.
According to Ibrahim Abdel Latif, they were “demanding the establishment of a trade union committee at our factory, a right which the company’s administration has been denying us.” He added, “I was sacked from the company one year ago while serving in the capacity of president of the workers’ administrative committee. All 1200 workers at this factory have been demanding the establishment of a union committee, and my reinstatement. Yet not all the workers could join in these protests because of their daytime work shifts.”