CAIRO: At least 2,000 civil servants demonstrated in Cairo on Sunday to demand increased wages, a security source said, in the latest protest by public sector employees to challenge the government.
Over 2,000 employees from the Real Estate Tax Office gathered outside the finance ministry to demand an increase in salaries, the source told AFP.
Sunday s demonstration is the latest in a series of protests which are seen as a potentially serious challenge to President Hosni Mubarak s regime.
An average monthly salary at the Real Estate Tax Office, which operates under local councils, is around LE 300, according to the security source.
The protesters are demanding that the office operate under the ministry of finance, where tax officers earn an average of LE 1,500.
In September, at least 24,000 workers at the Mahalla Spinning and Weaving Company in the Nile delta – one of the largest textile factories in the world – went on strike over unpaid profit shares and low wages.
The government subsequently agreed to their demands and similar strikes were held in other factories.
In 2006 alone, local media counted at least 200 instances of labor unrest.
Economic reforms that have yielded six percent annual growth rate in the past three years have failed to trickle down to ordinary workers.
