For the third day in a row, a labour strike is staged in three Ghazl and textile factories in Salihiyah, Governorate of Sharqiya north of Cairo: NorTex, Norameditex and HadiTex, after one of their colleagues was killed in an accident while riding the shift car.
 
This strike started after a fellow worker died and others were injured, fearing that their dues may not be paid in these factories; this actually developed to opening files of the worker’s rights violations in these factories.
Dr. Farid Ismail, the People’s Assembly member for Fakous, intervened to solve the problem between the factory and the workers and he sent lawyer, Mr. Ibrahim Al Shaer, lawyer Abdullah Shahin and Mr. Mohamed Gaser, his bureau chief to help solve the problem; however, the intervention of state security blocked the deal reached with the factory management attended by the Minister of Labour’s delegate; and the strike is still gaining steam.
 
The workers presented a list of their demands, including:
 
1-Workers’ transportation in buses or minibuses, not trucks.
 
2 – Establishing a labor union in the 2500-worker company.
 
3 – Giving one-day pay for working in the weekend, not giving a substitute day off for it, which is illegal.
 
4 – Fixing working hours, as prescribed by law, by 8 hours including one hour break, not working 8 hours including one hour break, which isn’t legal.
 
5 – Raising the main salary to 250 pounds instead of 110 pounds where as we have been working in this company for 13 years.
 
6 – Contracting with a hospital to care for workers health.
 
7-Making insurance policy on workers as the company hasn’t done such a measure.
 
8-Giving milk and sugar to workers in amounts that may remove the fallouts of the harmful materials workers are inhaling due to chemical substances; the company doesn’t give such aid.
 
For his part, Dr. Farid Ismail, the People’s Assembly member, told Ikhwanweb that workers reality is worsening in Egypt under privatization and buyouts of companies without guarantees to rights of the Egyptian workers.
 
Ismail pointed out that the workers demands are normal, but the managements of companies and factories adopt the same Egyptian regime’s treatment towards the Egyptians, i.s a relation of enslavement not partnership.
 
Ismail said that the government must solve the workers problems and provide a decent living for them and their families.
 
It is worth mentioning that many strikes have been hitting the Egyptian labor aren since last December, causing losses up to thousands of pounds everyday which may increase the owes of the ailing Egyptian economy.

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