CAIRO: Lack of contracts, low pay, and unjust dismissals topped the complaints of workers in private and public sector cement factories, who want their jobs back. “We are asking Prime Minister [Kamal] El-Ganzoury what to do. When we had a sit-in they called us thugs, when we asked for our rights they described us as beggars from the slums,” said Ahmed Maher, who spoke on behalf of the dismissed day-workers from National Cement, a public sector firm. “We don't know what to do anymore or where to go. I have two children, one of whom is four years old. I can't afford LE 20 to send him off to a day-care center,” he said, addressing attendees of a press conference at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) dedicated to workers in the cement industry. Maher had worked for the company for 13 years. Until his “unlawful” discharge in 2008, he had a contract with the company. Since then, he had been working unofficially through a contractor on a daily wages, until he was dismissed with the other workers in November 2011. ECESR director Khaled Ali explained that the press conference intended to discuss two primary issues: ensuring permanent contracts for workers, and the role of labor-supply intermediaries, who get paid for bringing in workers while no effort is made to secure their rights. “Workers protest when no one hears their demands,” he said. Karam Ismail, a National Cement worker for the past six years, and Ibrahim Abdel-Hakim who worked for nine years, told Daily News Egypt that the 245 workers were supposed to be hired, of whom 160 managed to get contracts. The rest were promised to contracts in a later hiring plan. “When they started hiring again, they brought another group of 75 not the old-timers who were promised,” said Ismail. Ismail was paid LE 3 per day when he was first hired. Throughout the years, his daily wage increased to LE 5, LE10 and LE16. Following the Jan. 25 uprising which called for social justice and toppled president Hosni Mubarak, the daily wage went up to LE 31 and lasted so for eight months. According to the National Cement workers, CEO Osman Hammad announced, over three months ago, wages were cut down to LE 18 per day, 20 days per month — down from the original 25 days per month. Workers then in turn protested citing harsh living conditions, demanding at least an increase in the number of working days while renegotiating wages. They were later dismissed on the grounds of “budget shortage and excess labor.” The workers then petitioned to Adel Mozy, the chairman of the holding company, and later at the Ministry of Investment, after which they were given pledges for reinstatement that never materialized. One of the workers' chief grievances was that they are paid through a go-between contractor who is paid LE 70 per day, from which they receive their LE 31. “We asked [the CEO] to dismiss the contractor and to directly pay [us] and save the difference, but he refused,” said Abdel-Hakim. Meanwhile, the private sector workers of Helwan Cement painted a not too different picture. “We had no kind of health insurance or social insurance,” packaging worker Mohamed Maarouf said, citing reasons for their original protest. He explained that the chairman had refused to provide contracts for many of the workers, who had been working through a labor office. The administration had announced that 50 percent of the workers would be dismissed, on grounds of similar budgetary issues, after which all company workers protested in solidarity, he said. The Helwan Cement workers were originally paid LE 12 per day, which later increased after Jan. 25 to LE 30-40 a day. He then explained that when the workers went on strike and held a sit-in at the company, a private security firm was hired to manage the situation, and thugs were also hired to clear the sit-in. They were put “under siege” and not even the press or MPs were able to enter. He said MPs have been apathetic to the workers' situation, such as Ramadan Omar from the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), who allegedly secured a seat through the support of local workers, but later ignored them and sided with the management. Meanwhile, FJP MP Khattab Ahmed Khattab visited the workers and apologized for not being able to help them, suggesting “they take matters into their own hands.” Maarouf noted that during the uprising when all other firms and businesses closed, the cement factories remained open and functioning, showing that they were unaffected by the uprising. “There are 1,200 workers in the company, 270 of which are the packaging workers on strike in the sit-in, while the rest are at home because the chief investor decided to shut down operation for now,” Maarouf told DNE.
