The strike, involving seven different Suez Canal Authority companies, is resumed as promised benefits including higher wages and legal changes to the companies' statuses fail to materialise "Hey sailor, tomorrow you will join the pilot," chanted the workers of different Suez Canal Authority companies today, expressing their anger with Admiral Ahmed Fadel, chairman and CEO of the Suez Canal Authority, who they want to leave office like Hosni Mubarak, the pilot. The workers decided to resume the strike which they had suspended in June, two weeks after the deadline to implement an agreement signed between representatives of the workers, Ahmed Fadel, and Ahmed Hasan El-Borai, minister of Manpower and Emigration. The agreement dating from 19 April was supposed to be implemented on the first of June. According to the agreement, the base salary of the workers should witness a rise by shifting 40 per cent of the bonus to the base salary, a reform that will not effectively increase the workers' wages but should have an important effect on their modest pensions. The promises also included a rise in the annual bonus of 7 per cent, at a minimum of LE1.5 (US$0.25)and a maximum of LE6.5 (approx $1),less than the price of a litre of oil. "Our colleagues who do exactly the same work in the Authority get a bonus of LE50 ($8.40),which was recently raised to LE100 ($16.80). Their salaries are triple ours; what can justify this?" wondered Mohamed Hagag, the head of the syndicate of the Canal Company for Ports, the biggest of the seven companies, with 2,000 workers. The explanation of this differentiation is that the seven companies are among the very few in Egypt who are, mysteriously, still under Law 48 of 1978 within the public sector, while almost all other public companies are under another law dating from 1991. So, to fulfil the promises made and respect the agreement signed, the Authority needs to modify the law, as its administration said to the workers. "The minister of manpower asked the Cabinet to modify the law but he didn't get an answer. We wrote a memo to the prime minister to consider the issue," said Adel Sobhi, head of the general syndicate of maritime transport, part of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation, generally considered to be pro-government. These answers don't satisfy the workers, who accuse the Authority and the government of procrastination. The only gain the workers have received so far is a LE2 ($0.35) increase in the daily meal allowance, which is still not satisfactory. "The agreement was a LE4 ($0.70) increase. That point doesn't need a modification of the law," said Mohamed Hagag. Most of the work of the seven companies doesn't influence the waterway on the Canal. The workers of the three companies that have some connection with the waterway announced only a partial strike. The seven companies number 8,600 workers and are located in the three Suez Canal cities; Suez, Ismailiya and Port Said. Suez Canal employees were among the civil servants and workers who went on strike across Egypt before the toppling of Hosni Mubarak on 11 February and played a pivotal role in building pressure during the revolution. The canal is a strategic and vital source of foreign currency for Egypt, along with tourism, oil and gas exports and remittances from Egyptians living abroad. Revenue from the Canal witnessed a slight fall in January and February 2011 compared to December but was higher than the same period last year. Analyst and officials assume the drop was not due to political unrest. Last May, revenue from the Suez Canal rose 10.5 per cent year-on-year to US$436.6 million, up0.5 per cent from a month earlier. Revenue in April 2010 was $374.9 million; in March 2011 it was $413.5 million.
