CAIRO: Three human rights organizations are calling on the prime minister to intervene in a labor dispute between workers and management at the Quick Tel telecommunications company.
Workers from the company are currently staging a sit-in at the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions headquarters in Cairo.
They began the sit-in six days ago after Quick Tel management posted a notice in the company’s factory on Aug. 4 announcing that all workers would be made to take unpaid leave, and in protest at the failure of the management to implement an agreement reached on May 25, under which workers would receive a LE 50,000 early retirement payout.
Last month, workers protested outside the company’s factory in Helwan, where the telecom equipment is manufactured, against the Manpower Ministry’s failure to intervene and ensure that workers receive their financial entitlements, including two months worth of unpaid wages, independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported.
The Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Land Center for Human Rights and Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights demand in a statement issued this week that the prime minister intervene in order to solve the crisis of the workers “who have been forced out on early retirement, that is early death.”
The statement also says that the criminal charges brought against Jordanian investor Ayman El-Hajawy, “who caused losses and stopped paying workers’ wages,” mean that Quick Tel should be returned to the public sector.
