After a 21-day sit-in outside the gates of Egypt’s parliament building, workers of the Amonsito textile factory finally reached a settlement with the government on 21 March. According to the agreement, compensation payments were to be made on 5 April.
Last Tuesday, however, government officials and Bank Misr representatives postponed the promised compensation payments to Wednesday, then to Thursday, then again to Monday, 12 April. But on that day, bank and government officials again postponed the fulfillment of their side of the bargain to next Thursday.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no government and no sovereignty in this country,” Khaled el-Shishawy, union head for Amonsito workers, told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "This is child’s play."
On 21 March, there had been much rejoicing on the sidewalk outside Egypt’s consultative chamber of parliament. After weeks of sleeping on the street, worker’s demands had finally brought results–or so it seemed.
At the time, protesting worker Fathallah Shaaban explained to Al-Masry Al-Youm: “This sit-in is the reason why the government moved. Without this non-violent sit-in, we wouldn’t have achieved anything.”
In 2007, Syrian-American business tycoon Adel Agha fled the country, leaving the Amonsito factory debt laden and at a standstill. Every time workers held sit-ins at the factory, the Ministry of Manpower and Migration responded by covering workers’ salaries for a number of months, as is required by Egyptian law.
Yet a trend developed in which the government simply halved salaries–before terminating payments altogether–in hopes that workers would simply give up on demanding their rights.
According to Egyptian law, in cases of factory liquidation, workers are to be compensated at the end of service. If the owner is unable to cover these debts, the creditor–in this case BankMisr– and responsible government authorities inherit responsibility for the payment of workers.
Prior to the March sit-in, Bank Misr and the Manpower Ministry failed to seek a solution, choosing instead to repeatedly postpone the issue.
During the workers’ three-week sit-in, a group of business investors and government representatives visited the Amonsito complex to assess the possibility of restarting operations. Instead, the delegation decided to simply liquidate the factory complex.
This resulted in the March 21 agreement, which involved three tranches of payment: the full payment of January and February salaries on the Tuesday following the strike; the payment of March salaries on the first Tuesday of April; and, finally, the bulk of the payment on 5 May.
According to the agreement, all employees over 20 years old were to receive three months of income for every year they have worked, while employees under 20 would receive four months’ salary for every year of employment at the factory.
After workers called off their sit-in, a typical situation ensued. The creditors–Bank Misr and the Manpower Ministry–paid the first installment, consisting of January and February salaries. In a common carrot-and-stick strategy, the immediate payment of workers’ salaries played a significant role in bringing the sit-in to a close.
By April, the creditors and government representatives were once again stalling, since the pressure of a public sit-in had come to an end and the government was even given credit by the public for agreeing to meet workers’ demands.
But for Amonsito workers desperate to be compensated for their lengthy employment at the factory, the delay of the March payment deadline was a bad omen.
“We signed the agreement in front of the workers and now the government keeps postponing. If they postpone it again, we will relaunch the sit-in," the Amonsito union head told Al-Masry Al-Youm. "Is this a joke?”
“There’s no law in this country… the Nubareyya workers have returned to their sit-in in front of parliament for the fourth day after not receiving their promises, while special-needs protesters are in their fifth week of a sit-in,” added el-Shishawy.
On 2 May, various labor movements called for a protest outside parliament to demand an increase of Egypt’s minimum wage from the current official rate of LE35 a month to LE1200 per month. The requested increase is in line with significant annual inflation in Egypt.
Current economic policies in Egypt, pursued in a bid to attract outside investment, are creating increasingly difficult conditions for workers. As government officials repeatedly shirk their responsibilities towards laborers, strikes are mushrooming by the day.
Both Manpower Minister Aisha Abdel Hady and ministry spokesman Ibrahim Ali declined to comment on the reasons for the delay of Amonsito workers’ March wages.
The Amonsito union head expressed a deep sense of responsibility for the workers he represents, vowing: “If we return to our sit-in, it won’t be the same as last time. Things will be different.”
