Five thousand workers of the Alexandria-based United Arab and Polvara Spinning and Weaving Co. staged a labor strike, starting from last Saturday, protesting at not increasing shares, discriminating between workers and executives, not paying profits, canceling incentives for working on Fridays and sick leaves and not excluding advisors and those on pension .
The strike included workers of the first, second, fourth and fifth shifts, to be joined later by the third shift workers who broke the company gate and joined their colleagues in the strike .
Essam Ahmed Ibrahim, a worker in the first shift, and Mohamed Abdul Wahab, a worker in the fourth one, said the administrative employee is favoured in the nymber of shares unlike workers; the administrative employee who was appointed only four years ago owns 400 shares, while worker owns only 160 shares; the workers haven"t been paid the profits of these shares during the last ten years; the last time in which every worker was paid profits was in 1997, 60 pounds per worker.
The workers pointed out that this is the fourth strike of its kind in the company; all strikes were staged for refusing to pay profits and incentives; Khamis Al-Shayal, a worker, said:" the administration decides every time to pay 6 months but what is actually paid to the workers are only 3 months; he warned that not addressing their demands may lead to drawing 7000 other workers to the strike .
For his part, MP Saber Abul Fattouh, a labor leader in Alexandria, told Ikhwanweb that the Egyptian workers started to be aware of their stolen and violated rights; they are demanding nowadays the rights and dues that they should have demanded a long time ago.
Aboul-Fotouh praised this move sayingL: We hope to see this in all state-run institutions so that all the Egyptian people move to demand all their rights and to move from the role of a spectator to the role of a main player in the events that Egypt is currently witnessing.
Aboul-Fotouh warned against ignoring the worker"s rights and not meeting their demands because this may add fuel to fire in the labor arenas.
It is worth mentioning that Alexandria and other governorates have recently witnessed many labor sit-ins and demonstrations, protesting at their stolen and violated rights and the deteriorating services, in addition to the low incomes that can"t meet the price hikes.
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