A protest of approximately 800 workers from the Petrojet oil services company entered its second day on Monday. The protesters are conducting a sit-in at the company’s premises in Gharbiya to demand salary increases and end-of-the-year profit sharing. The Petrojet employees have threatened to stage a sit-in in front of the parliament building in Cairo if their demands are not met.
Workers said some company staff received as much as LE20,000 in profit sharing while others received as little as LE3000. They also said that workers were hired in 2002 for a monthly salary of LE400, while only a year later, newly-hired workers were appointed for just LE200 a month.
They added that the company fired 40 of their colleagues when they asked to be treated equally with the newly appointed workers.
Petroleum syndicate president Mohamed Saafan denied any discrepancies in profit sharing. "The problem is only at the Ghabiya branch and we will work on resolving it," he said.
Petrojet is an affiliate of the General Petroleum Authority and employs more than 18,000 workers nationwide.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
