Tanta Linen Company workers in Egypt begin open-ended strike

The workers’ demands are to get paid bonuses on the basis of 2008 wage rate instead of 2003, the accumulated commissions that unpaid since selling the company to the Saudi investor, increasing the meal compensation from 32 L.E to 90 L.E like all other textile companies, a 7% regular subsidy, and the rehiring of their fired fellow workers.

Before this strike, the management of Tanta Linen Co. forcibly foiled any call for strike, threatening the workers to fire whoever participates in a striking action. Moreover, it forced them to sign on a non-striking commitment, however it didn’t work out.

This is not the first time for Tanta Linen Co. workers to go on strike. In 2006, the workers began their first strike that ended with an agreement to get the late payments. Nonetheless the management didn’t respect that agreement; therefore the workers went again on strike in September 2007. Although the employer representative, Mohammed Sobhi and the manger of the company, El Shahat Anyes, both were agreed on the workers’ then demands in the presence of the undersecretary of Man Power Ministry, Mohammed Soliman, the employer refused to fulfill the agreement items and fired some of the workers. In July 2008, the workers went on strike for the third time; in return, the management fired nine workers, including two union representatives, and took over the headquarters of union in the company.

The nine fired workers are Gamal Othman, Akad Tantawi, Ashref El Herati, Ali Abu Lilah, Ahmed El Shenawy, Ramadan El Bagwry, Mustafa El Sawy, plus two union representatives, Hesham El Okl and Rafeet Ramadan.

To save face, the holding company of chemical industries, to which Tanta Linen Co is annexed, sued the employer for not fulfilling the contract items, but in the end the court canceled the case because the lawyer of the holding company didn’t attend the court sessions. Moreover, the “disaster” contract states that any legal disputes shall be judged by international courts not Egyptian ones.

Tanta Linen Co. Workers’ problems have got much worse since the government sold the company to the Saudi investor Abdallah Saleh al-Ka'ki. Throughout its privatisation program, the government sold the company for L.E 83 million paid in three years installments, though the actual value of the company is L.E 500 million.