CAIRO: Striking workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company will be paid a sum the equivalent of two months wages, but not until they break up the sit-in outside the cabinet office they started almost two weeks ago, said Egypt's labor minister. Manpower Minister Aisha Abdel-Hady was quoted as saying by state newspaper Al-Ahram yesterday that a sum of LE 700,000 will be paid to 800 workers, on condition that they end their sit-in in Downtown Cairo where they have been sleeping in the street since Feb. 8 2010. Tanta employees are protesting unpaid salaries, allowance payments and demanding the reinstatement of nine workers they say were unfairly dismissed. According to Abdel-Hady buses will be provided to transport workers back to Tanta after they agree to break up the sit-in. Negotiations are reportedly ongoing with the Saudi investor, Abd-Ellah El-Kahky, who bought the company in 2005 in order to reach solutions for the company's problems. The Al-Ahram article says that the sale contract agreed on by El-Kahky and the government for Tanta Flax is "faulty and "did not delineate with sufficient clarity employees' rights . Independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm published extracts from the sale contract in its Friday edition. Workers last week told Daily News Egypt that the deterioration of labor relations in the factory since the takeover is due to the fact that only one article in the contract mentions workers' rights. The contract as it appears in Al-Masry obligates the buyer to "protect all the workers employed by the company as well safeguard their privileges and wages. Workers may only be dispensed with in accordance with the provisions of the labor law. -Daily News Egypt
