A parliamentary panel Thursday reached an agreement to sell a textile factory, whose workers had been protesting for a fortnight outside the Egyptian Parliament. "The Amonsito Spinning and Weaving Company will be sold and the 1,700 workers will be compensated and pensioned off. After it has been sold, the company will pay off its debts to the banks," said Chairman of the People's Assembly's Workforce Committee Hussein Megawir. He added that the Egyptian Trade Unions' Federation (ETUF) will pay the workers two months' wages to support them until the deal comes into effect. "The ETUF will pay around LE2 million to the workers," Megawir, who also heads the ETUF, said, while the workers applauded a decision that has ended their two-week protest. They'd launched the protest after Syrian-American investor Adel Agha fled the country for the US 18 months ago, having been sentenced in absentia to three years in prison with hard labour for failing to repay the company's debts to both State-run Misr Bank and Cairo Bank. He's still out of the country.
