The union says there is light at the end of the tunnel. Ora-Misr workers remain sceptical. Faiza Rady reports on the ongoing dispute to secure compensation for workers exposed to the deadly mineral "I met with Ismail Lokma, cousin of Ora- Misr owner Ahmed Lokma, on Sunday and I'm confident that the workers will receive a fair settlement soon," says Abdel-Moneim El-Ghazali, president of the General Union of Engineering, Steel and Electrical Industries. "Ahmed Lokma himself has been in hiding for a long time. I've never met him though I've been trying to arrange a meeting for the past three years." Asked if Lokma, who has successfully evaded questioning for years, exercised political pull El-Ghazali dismissed the suggestion. "This is utter nonsense. As a Muslim Brother he cannot exactly vie for high-powered protection. At any rate he will comply now because a lot of pressure is being exerted." Earlier this month, El-Ghazali sent a letter to the prime minister's office asking that the Ora- Misr workers' demands for "adequate compensation" be addressed. The workers remain sceptical. "El-Ghazali is playing for time," says Said Abdel-Latif Ibrahim, head of the union committee at Ora- Misr. "Though he denies knowing anything about Lokma's whereabouts he knows very well that the man is in the United States. And as long as Lokma remains abroad nothing will be settled." A recent sit-in at the Cairo headquarters of the General Federation of Trade Unions by 36 workers from the closed Ora-Misr plant in 10th of Ramadan City publicised their on-going struggle to gain compensation following decades of exposure to the deadly mineral asbestos. The sit-in ended with promises that the workers' complaints would be examined, after which the 36 men returned to the protest camp set up in front of the gates of the plant. The Ora-Misr factory was among 11 factories closed down last year following the issue of Decree No 336 on 11 September 2004 by the Ministry of Industry and Foreign Trade. The decree prohibits the use of asbestos in industrial production. In an addendum to the decree, though, companies were allowed to continue production until their available stocks of asbestos had been exhausted. The decree also omitted any reference to the workers' rights to compensation, health care and early retirement packages. As a consequence Ora-Misr owner Ahmed Lokma claimed financial losses as a result of the closure and refused to offer the workers any compensation. "We went to Cairo to put pressure on the union to get things moving and we will return if our grievances aren't addressed," says Said Abdel-Latif Ibrahim, head of the union committee at Ora-Misr. "The committee has met with the state security people twice and they say they're working on our case. So we're waiting. But this doesn't mean we are giving up our struggle. Our long-term strategy includes joining the Kifaya protest movement to make our voices heard. We refuse to be silenced." The workers have been waging their struggle ever since Ahmed El-Dessouki, a plant manager, died of asbestos-related liver cancer in 1997. "He died without even being exposed directly to the deadly mineral. Unlike us, El-Dessouki was an office employee working in the administration, but he passed away because he worked in the building," recalls Ibrahim. "Others have also died: Hamdi Ahmed Arafat of lung cancer, Abdel-Moneim Holoul of cancer of the intestines and Mohsen Abdel-Khaleq of stomach cancer. These people, and many others, were Lokma's victims -- they were killed by greed." It didn't have to happen, say the workers. The degree of exposure could have been minimised by enforcing basic safety measures set by the ministries of health and environment. Yet Lokma consistently refused to comply, violating state safety requirements for years. "All he wanted was to maximise profit with no concern for health and safety," says Abu Issa Ahmed, an Ora-Misr worker since 1983. Workers at the plant spent years handling asbestos with bare hands. "I was sent to Spain in the mid-1980s for a training course," says Ahmed, "and I saw how Spanish asbestos workers were covered from head to toe. They were wearing suits like astronauts, oversized footwear and headgear. But at Ora-Misr we weren't even issued with gloves." Besides clogging lung tissues when inhaled as dust particles, asbestos on the workers' clothes polluted homes and placed their families at risk. The ministries of environment and manpower repeatedly asked Lokma to install an industrial washing machine at the plant to wash dust from the workers' clothes. The plant's billionaire owner never bothered to comply. There were other violations of health and safety standards. "Asbestos plants should legally have air pumps to suck dust particles from the air," says Ibrahim. "But the pumps at the plant were not working so we breathed in the particles." The Ora-Misr plant was equally cavalier in its waste disposal, polluting the surrounding environment and effectively putting the health of 30,000 workers at risk. "Lokma is also the owner of Groppi's, the famous coffee shop in downtown Cairo," comments Ahmed. "This pious man, who prohibited the sale of alcohol in Groppi's when he bought the place in the 1980s never thought of banning asbestos from the plant." "There are more than 700 tonnes of polluted waste materials sitting in the plant's yard, behind the mill," says Ahmed. "When the wind blows it carries particles into the neighbouring area and contaminates the air." Ahmed's point is supported by scientific evidence. According to the British medical journal Cancer "living within 2,000 meters of an asbestos cement plant, asbestos textile mill, shipyard or break factory results in an almost 12-fold increase in pleural mesothelioma -- an asbestos-related cancer of the lung or abdominal cavity." So how did the plant keep on operating given such violations of health and safety standards? The workers blame government inefficiency, compounded by corruption. "Look, for example, at Decree 85 of 2002, issued by the District Manpower Office," says Ibrahim. "It orders the company to 'stop production until all violations of health safety regulations are ended'. Yet Lokma was able to get a permit to reopen the plant, based on a pledge to comply with the decree within a month. He never complied but closed the plant as soon as he was informed that a workers' health and safety delegation was on its way." Such ploys were used to evade inspection and the enforcement of Decree 85 for at least nine months. "It was only through our struggle that we managed to stop Lokma in his tracks," says Ibrahim. "And we'll continue to press the authorities until we get our rights." Additional reporting by Sara Abou Bakr
