(Photo by Mohamed Assad)
Workers from the Holding Company for Spinning and Weaving in Mahalla returned to work Saturday after a four-day strike, after receiving promises by the administration to pay late profit shares, and to look into other demands, Mohamed Assad, a worker in the company said.
The decision was announced after negotiations between representatives of the workers and the officials resulted in distributing the late profits in return for suspending the sit in.
However, Assad mentioned that the strike was not primarily concerned with financial demands.
Workers staged an open-ended sit-in inside the company headquarters on 13 January to demand an immediate restructuring of the company’s leadership, he added.
Striking workers also demanded the cancellation of the government’s decision to remove cotton cultivation subsidies, which they argued will negatively affect the company’s production.
During the sit-in at the company, the Revolutionary Socialist movement reported that the striking workers received messages on their mobile phones threatening strike leaders with possible suspension.
The company is one of Egypt’s major industrial infrastructures, and is reported to include more than 75,000 workers.
In February of last year, 13,000 workers began an open-ended sit-in in the factory in Mahalla, demanding promised bonuses and the new government-sanctioned minimum wage.
Mahalla workers staged a crippling strike in 2006 to demand bonuses and better wages, which inspired numerous other strikes by factory workers across the country. This strike is often credited as being one of the major factors leading up to the 25 January Revolution.
