(DNE File Photo)
A building under construction in Cairo.construction, building, renovation, Workers, bricks, iron, residentialPhoto by: Hassan Ibrahim
Workers at the Construction Company and the Beheira Joint Company for Land Reclamation entered an open sit-in Tuesday in Giza.
The sit-in is taking place at the headquarters for the Holding Company for Land Reclamation and Research Groundwater situated in Al-Arish Street.
The workers are protesting their not having received salaries for 10 months, due to the company’s losses and the lack of work coming in.
“We demand that we receive our net salaries for the last 10 months,” said a sit-in participant, union member, and head of the drivers at the Construction Company Abdel, Moneim Al-Alfy. “Since the company was privatised in 1994, the work keeps decreasing and there has now been no work at all for 10 months.”
Up to 1,700 workers at the Construction Company and 4,000 workers at the Behira Company have not received their salaries. Al-Alfy added: “We just want to feed our families.”
“We know that the company doesn’t make any revenues so we are demanding that the government look at our problems and solve them. The Prime Minister [Ibrahim Mehleb] knew about our situation two months ago and promised to solve our problem in three days but nothing happened. We want our voices to be heard and to reach President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi,” Al-Alfy noted.
Egypt’s unemployment rate reached 13.1% by the end of 2014, out of the total of 27 million individuals able to work.
The government is seeking to increase the GDP growth rate by 3.8% by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2014-2015. They are also looking to provide new employment opportunities targeting 100,000 opportunities by the end of 2015, according to statements by the Minister of Manpower and Immigration Nahed Al-Ashry, released in late 2014.
