For the twelfth consecutive day, workers at the Egypt-based Industrial and Engineering Projects Company (IEEC) continue their sit-in at the company’s headquarters in Nasr City district. The workers were protest against not getting paid for seven successive months.
The sit-in has been ongoing for 10 days and recently police forces got involved to surround the strike.
This sit-in comes among a series of many protests all over the last seven months after the workers had resorted to all the legal and formal ways to get their pays. Yet, neither the company’s board nor the concerned authorities made any step to solve the crisis, except for giving the workers some pinky promises.
Hussien El Sayed, one of IEEC workers’, stated that they had sent a memo to the Egyptian presidency, cabinet, Ministry of Manpower and the Holding Company, but none had given a kind ear. He further noted that the police force was only concerned about not disrupting El- Mokhyyam Al-Daem Street, Nasr City, where the company’s headquarters locates.
Ali Zaki Eqab, Shareholders’ Union Chief, said the government had failed to find an exit to the problem and not to even disburse medical substances, leading many workers to enter very critical health condition as they cannot afford medicine prices.
Ibrahim Bayoumi, Syndicate Committee Board Member, declared that the workers’ had taken all the official procedures to get their rights back, but none tried to help them, affirming that 2300 families are starving right now after 7 months. He wondered if the government would accept leaving these families penniless with Holy Ramadan on the way!
Bayoumi urged President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to interfere to solve the problem and help Egypt’s workers especially that Labors’ Day just passed.
Moreover, he added that the solution for this problem is that Prime Minister would order the National Authority For Potable Water and Sewage, which is responsible for giving IEEC missions, to lay out EGP 30 million to give the workers’ their wages. These EGP 30 million are to be deducted from the company’s business. He added that the workers’ salaries range between EGP 800 to EGP 3000.