By AFP
CAIRO: Workers at Egypt’s largest factory walked out Thursday on an open-ended strike in solidarity with anti-government protesters and to demand a raise in the minimum wage, they told AFP.
Workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving textile factory — which employs 24,000 people in the Nile Delta city of Al-Mahalla Al-Kubra — padlocked the buildings and massed in front of the administration offices.
“We are striking first of all to show solidarity with the protesters in Tahrir Square,” the focal point of anti-government demonstrations in the capital Cairo, one strike organizer, Faisal Naousha, told AFP by telephone.
“We also want court rulings lifting the minimum wage to be implemented,” he said.
Hundreds of workers are expected to be joined by thousands more from the afternoon shift, Naousha said.
The public sector Misr Spinning and Weaving company is the country’s biggest plant, and Egypt’s textile industry employs 48 percent of the total labor force, according to the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS).
A security official told AFP tens of thousands of employees in the public sector were staging strikes in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the canal city of Suez and cities on the north coast and on the Red Sea.
“There is definitely an escalation since the protests began,” Kamal Abbas from the CTUWS told AFP.
Since nationwide rallies erupted on January 25 demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule, “we have started to hear of the billions of dollars that officials hold in personal accounts,” Abbas said.
“So many employees feel it is time to stand up and demand their rights,” he said.
The strikes and protests continued despite promises by Egypt’s newly formed government to raise public sector salaries and pensions by 15 percent, one of a series of steps taken to placate the protesters.
