CAIRO: Employees of Telecom Egypt (TE) protested Monday outside the company's headquarters on Ramses Street, saying they will be on strike until their demands are met. The protest followed a court upheld the prosecution's decision to keep five employees remanded in custody pending investigations. The employees, aged between 29 and 37, are reportedly accused of attempted murder after holding a senior manager at his office for 20 hours to pressure him to resign. “This is a political decision, not a legal one. They have nothing against them. They want to frighten all Egyptians from going on strikes,” explained Rehab Hamdy, from TE's workers coalition. The young woman warned that the employees would cut landline and internet services countrywide if their demands were not met. Dozens of workers protested against the “corrupt” management on Monday. They cited official documents that showed huge wage disparities. As senior management's salaries and bonuses amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds, workers said they don't even get LE 1,000 a month. “We want the board to resign; we want the release of our five colleagues; we want a revision of our wages and we want the health insurance to include our families,” explained Ahmed El-Soghair, one of the protesters. “Some members of the board receive thousands of pounds every month while some of us don't even get LE 1,000 a month,” he added. Workers claim that 60-70 Telephone Exchanges have joined the strike, including major ones in Cairo, as well as in Alexandria, Port Said, Minya, Assiut and Sohag. Other reports have put the number of striking centrals closer to 35. Employees at TE's popular information services, 140, are also reportedly on strike. Protests escalated last week when number of employees allegedly held hostage the company CEO, Mohamed Abdel Rahim, at the Opera Telephone Exchange for hours, before security forces freed him and arrested five employees. “Those are lies. We wanted to speak to him, he insulted us and ran away to lock himself in his office. One of his guards who beat us with a stick was promoted the next day,” explained a protester who refused to give out his name.
