Press Release
Salem Co. Workers Stage a Sit-in at Egyptian Parliament over Unpaid Wages
Egypt, CTUWS, 8 March 2010: Today about 100 workers of El Nasr Acrylic Yarn Company (Salem Co), located in the 10th of Ramadan City, stage a sit-in in front of the Parliament, protesting against their Syrian employer, Mohammed Friz Salem, who stopped paying out wages of January and February 2010, plus periodic and Worker Day Increments.
The workers had gathered yesterday in the premise of Textile Trade Union (TTU), in Shoubra, north of Cairo, demanding the union to move quickly and urgently for solving their problem. However, the TTU only wrote a statement to be presented to the Minster of Manpower once she arrives from El Bahrain.
Disappointed with the TTU and its bureaucratic action, the workers, who spent the night in the union premise, have moved this morning to stage a sit-in in front of the parliament, asking for a solution. There, they met the independent parliamentarian, Gamal Zahran, whom they delivered a statement with all their demands. Until now they are standing still.
The Center of Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) expresses its anxiety towards such repeated measures of employers and investors who fail to meet their obligations and social responsibilities. They obviously violate the law and carelessly stop paying out the wages of workers without taking into account the consequences of such actions. The CTUWS emphasizes on the urgent need to activate negotiating and social controlling mechanisms in order to put an end for the growing chaos that ruling the investing system in the country.
The global financial crisis is no longer an excuse to employers for not fulfilling their responsibility toward workers, not even stumbling economy- whatever its curve – would be an exception. In all cases, the rules of law that regulate the relationship between the various parties in the work place should be respected as well as collective bargaining mechanisms.
The CTUWS condemns the failure of Syrian employer in paying out the wages of workers and fulfilling his obligations and emphasizes on the seriousness of the recurrence of such practices that put workers in bad conditions, and calls upon the Government to carry out its responsibilities toward these practices, and develop the necessary mechanisms and take appropriate actions.
The CTUWS also calls upon all democratic forces into Egyptian society to support Salem Co. workers who did not get paid their wages for two months.
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