MAHALLA Al KOBRA/CAIRO: Healthcare tops the list of demands put forward by the Ghazl El Mahalla textile factory workers. While they wait for the fulfillment of salary raise promises, the question arises about their responsibility in the deterioration of quality that has plagued the production of the state-owned factory. Workers admit the end product of the factory leaves much to be desired. Engineer Abd El Kader Ahmed believes that the factory is collapsing due to a corrupt administration. It is painful to see this great factory collapse. Mohamed Al Attar, one of the leaders of the workers' movement in Mahalla, complimented the performance of workers and blamed the poor quality of the raw materials used in the factory. The company, he explained, no longer uses Egyptian cotton and instead employs imports. Blame the administration, the market and the corruption, not the worker's performance, he added. Workers are punctual and do their jobs conscientiously. If we are five minutes late, we lose a quarter of our daily wage, and if we leave five minutes early, it is considered 'escaping from work' and we receive harsh penalties. Workers produce the amount of textile required from them and even more, said Al Attar. Machines are not working because of bad maintenance, corrupt administration that wastes the company s money, Magdi Ahmed Hussein, the secretary general of the Egyptian Labor (Islamist) Party told The Daily Star Egypt. Using over employment as an excuse for reducing the standard of living is nonsense, according to Hussein. Samer Soliman, a professor of political economy at the American University in Cairo argues that workers, the weak people, are the ones who pay the price of policy irrationality that has led to over employment. Over employment is mainly due to political considerations to expand the scope of loyalty to the regime, and now that the boat sinks, the weak people bear the cost by their reduced salaries, Soliman told The Daily Star Egypt. Ahmed, who supports the workers in their demands, also stressed the poor salaries. We are all in the same boat. We barely manage; this is not the standard of living I want to provide my children with. It is better not to be there at all than being among them and unable to meet their demands. It is painful, Abd El Kader said. Hussein argues that the value of the Egyptian currency is deteriorating, and therefore, there is potential for demonstrations to increase due to the lack of a comprehensive plan for development. Our salaries have been limited by certain regulations while prices are going up without any sort of control, Al Attar said. We need salaries that help us live in the long term, not temporary bonuses, Emad Abd El Hay, a worker and a father of three children who earns LE 150 told The Daily Star Egypt. We suffer great pain, Al Attar said, before receiving promises for reform from the Union for Workers' Syndicates. The spokesperson of the protestors, Al Attar, said that they cancelled the planned strike upon receiving promises to fulfill 80/85 percent of their demands; however, the company's workers have voiced demands, other than the ones that are set to be addressed. A number of workers have criticized the healthcare system. Workers are entitled to receiving free treatment from the company s hospital, however, Al Sayed Mohamed Ateya Abu Sebl said that doctors neglect them unless the patients go to the doctor s clinic and pay around LE 20-30. He also complains about company laws stipulating that if workers take their sabbaticals, they lose their production bonuses. I had a heart attack, but I cannot stay home because they will deduct money, I do not want my children to starve, said Mervat Abd El Aty, another worker. I cannot pay LE 20; I want to enjoy my right to free treatment, Abu Sebl commented, who earns around LE 6 a day and is the father of two children, with a third on the way. His wife helps him sell tameya. I have been working for 35 years and get only LE 500. I pay LE 250 rent; how can I live? They always say the company loses money. It is not my problem. I do my work. Those who cause the loss should be made to account for what they do, Awad Mohamed Abdalla, a worker, told The Daily Star Egypt. They also complained of the harsh and dangerous working conditions in the long term. We are supposed to inhale from a special oxygen-equipped protection mask, however, the company gives us ordinary masks that make it ever harder for us to breathe, Al Attar said. Workers talking to The Daily Star Egypt before the promised financial compensation, complained about the high prices of bean (foul and tameya) sandwiches, rise and macaroni. Nasr Abdalla was buying a 75 piaster watermelon - slightly bigger than an orange - for his four children. We feed our children, and do not eat ourselves, he said. We can sell our clothes so that our children can learn instead of letting them go out on the street and sell drugs, said another female worker who declined to give her name.
