CAIRO: Telecom Egypt's transmission engineers reportedly went on strike in several governorates on Sunday, objecting to the discrepancies in salaries between engineers within the company, press reports said on Monday. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm daily newspaper, engineers sent an internal email calling for a strike, which brought work to a halt at the Ramses, Tanta, Alexandria, Suez and Sharqeya call centers. "We are tired of false promises given by management that our salaries and bonuses will increase, the email said. They claimed that their salaries were only LE 1,000, when other engineers got paid up to LE 15,000. The engineers on strike did not call for pay raises to match the salaries of employees in private telecom companies, instead saying "we want to at least get paid as much as the engineers in the [company's] IT department. Sources inside the government-owned company told Daily News Egypt that IT engineers are under a bonus system, which the striking transmission engineers are excluded from. "Transmission engineers usually receive an average salary of $3,000 in other companies in Egypt, the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. In Telecom Egypt, those engineers earn LE 1,500-2,000 a month, if not less, the source added. However, the source continued, the IT engineers are not that much better off. The big bonuses usually go to top management, while most of the engineers get "minimal and unstable bonuses, the source said. According to the striking employees, more than 20 employees from the Ramses call center left their jobs last month after feeling "discriminated against. The email called on all engineers to participate in the strike, until Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) Tarek Kamel interferes to solve the "injustice. The MCIT refused to comment on the strike, saying they had not received information that there were any strikes at Telecom Egypt. Telecom Egypt officials refuted the news, saying the paper had printed rumors and there was no disruption to work in any of the call centers. There were no complaints that telephone services had been disrupted in any of the listed areas. The strikers claim that the company had promised them pay raises by July 1, "but these were false promises and instead issued an advertisement calling for new engineers to fill vacant positions because they knew the engineers will soon leave to better jobs in private companies. Telecom Egypt announced last week that they will raise the prices of telephone calls up to 50 percent. - Additional reporting by Sarah El Sirgany
