Train and subway drivers ended their sit-in on Tuesday evening after the president of the Egyptian National Railway Authority promised to pay them LE 100 per month as a regular incentive starting from next July plus an additional LE 100 after a year. Meanwhile, the drivers gave the Authority 10 days to pay them their extra-kilometers incentives. Some 500 train drivers lied on the rail tracks on Tuesday at Ramsis train station [Cairo] in protest at the Authority's failure to pay their regular incentive, causing a 20-minute delay in a train arriving at platform n. 1. Subway drivers also reduced the train speed from 80 Km/h to 30 Km/h, leading to 15-minute-long waiting on platforms packed with passengers. Train driver Wael Barakat said: "We had to end the sit-in after the Authority chairman promised us to pay the incentive from next July 1. But if this doesn't happen, we'll protest once more till our claims are met". Authority Chairman Mahmoud Samy described the drivers' protests as irresponsible. Speaking to the press yesterday, he said the Authority would show no leniency when dealing with any case of negligence, adding there were regulations governing the work and the relation between the Authority and the drivers. He also affirmed that he had submitted the drivers' requests to Transportation Minister Mohamed Loutfy Mansour although the current fiscal year was over. The head of the railways general trade union Ramadan el-Gundi blamed the Authority's direction for the continuous sits-in. "All the sits-in have been caused by the Authority's chairman, as he is the one who has prompted the workers to carry out such forms of protests by refusing to pay them their arrears once they declared the sit-in" he told Al-Masry Al-Youm. He said the Authority had approved yesterday to pay 50% of the incentive increase proposed by the trade unions. The latter had proposed it to be LE 200 for first level drivers, LE 150 for second level ones and LE 100 and LE 75 for third and fourth level ones respectively. El-Gundi criticized the Authority's decision to cut the incentive increase proposed by the trade unions, adding that the latter would stick to their proposal. He added he would try to hold a meeting with the Transportation and Manpower ministers as well as the head of the General Federation of Trade Unions next week to discuss the issue. The Authority had turned down the proposal saying it did not have the LE 7 million necessary to pay for this increased incentive. Meanwhile, train drivers' strike delayed the trains for Southern Egypt for more than three hours. Officials at Menya train station refused to explain the causes of the delay, while microbus drivers took advantage of this situation and increased tariffs in the morning. Aswan station became packed with passengers and relatives waiting for their loved ones. They threatened to submit a collective complaint to the Authority chairman for disrupting the service. The head of the southern zone of Aswan railways, Yahiya Abdel Azim, said that trains were traveling regularly and that no passenger had filed any notification or complaint. Train drivers in the governorate of Gharbia showed their solidarity with their colleagues in Cairo and gave the Authority ten days to meet their claims, threatening to stage new sits-in.
