The children of the Amonsito Company striking textile workers staged a protest on Monday before the Egyptian parliament building in downtown Cairo. For the last eight consecutive days, their parents have been holding sit-ins before the Shura Council, the consultative chamber of parliament. Employees' children held banners aloft urging President Hosni Mubarak and his family to save their parents from anticipated layoffs. Their parents, meanwhile, lashed out at Manpower Minister Aisha Abdel Hadi--currently attending a conference in Bahrain--for neglecting their demands. They also complained that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif was ignoring their plight due to fears that the Syrian investor who bought the company would win an arbitration lawsuit--filed in the US--against the Egyptian government. Workers claim the company has so far accrued some LE2 billion worth of bank debts and urged banks to seize the company and return it to company employees. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
