In an attempt to placate the anger of thousands of textile-sector workers the economic committee of the cabinet approved during its meeting yesterday chaired by Prime Minister Hazem Al-Biblawi to pay the last batch of bonuses to the workers at an estimated cost of LE157 million. Minister of Investment Osama Saleh,, also revealed plans to develop the spinning and weaving companies at a cost of up to LE6 billion during the next 33 months. Thousands of workers at five public-sector textiles companies known for their militant workers movements started a strike on Monday in the factories, at the companies' headquarters, and in front of the Ministry of Finance's headquarters. In addition to asking for the payment of their bonuses, the striking workers are calling for the application of the minimum wage and the dismissal of the chairman of the Holding Company for Spinning and Weaving. The workers announced that they would continue an open-ended sit-in and refused to accept the cabinet's promise that that they would receive their bonuses but would not be paid the minimum wage. The five companies concerned are Mahalla for Spinning and Weaving, Delta Tanta, Zagazig, Kafr Al-Dawar and Misr Helwan. The workers were supposed to receive the latest batch of their bonuses after a general assembly meeting on 28 January, but this was postponed to the beginning of February. Faisal Lakoushah, a textile worker and one of the strike leaders, said the total number of workers participating in the strike was 20,000. He confirmed that the workers would not return to work until they had received the “promised minimum wage” like other government employees. “We demand equality with other employees in the government's administrative apparatus. If the government doesn't have the resources to pay all its employees, it should stick to applying a maximum wage level so that it will have enough resources to provide all public-sector and government employees with the promised minimum wage,” Lakoushah said. According to the cabinet only civil servants and those employed in the country's administrative apparatus will receive the new minimum wage set at LE1,200 a month. “The minimum wage will be paid to workers in the government administration system only and not to employees of the public sector or public enterprise sector and of course private-sectors workers are also excluded from the decision,” Amr Adli, director of the economic and social justice unit at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an NGO, said. “The government is pursuing its old ways of lobbying the biggest base of employees, administrate staff, and ignoring the broadest unionised mass of workers,” Adli added. Daila Moussa, a researcher at the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), an NGO, agreed with Adli, adding that the strike was likely to continue until the government paid the minimum wage. “If the government agrees to pay the Mahalla workers the minimum wage, it will have to apply this to all the labour in the public sector and obviously it can't afford to do this,” Moussa said. Egypt's minimum wage increase will cost an estimated LE12 billion in fiscal year 2013/14, the head of the budget division at the ministry of finance said, a figure that takes into account the government's estimated budget deficit of 10 per cent of GDP and the ministry's projected figure of 11.5 per cent of GDP. The Mahalla workers are also demanding the dismissal of Fouad Abdel-Alim Hassan, chairman of the Holding Company for Cotton, Spinning and Weaving, which is the parent company of all public-sector textiles firms. Lakoushah said that the workers rejected the statement issued by the cabinet late on Monday after a meeting between the workers' union committee and the minister of finance and that they would continue their strike until their demands were met. The labour movement in the textiles sector is the most active in Egypt. Recurrent strikes in 2006 and 2008 are seen as one of the main triggers of the heightened social unrest that eventually toppled the former Mubarak regime.
