When Thursday never comes

By Fatemah Farag
It has happened again. For one reason or another the owner of a factory will decide he has had enough and shuts down his operation. The workers he has employed walk to the gates of their factory one day and find a lock and suddenly they have joined the ever-growing pool of the unemployed.
This time the company was Amouncite, a complex comprising textile-related factories that opened about 10 years ago in the industrial satellite city of 10 Ramadan. Owned by Adel Agha, a Syrian national, the company shut its doors on 4 December, leaving more than 3,000 workers with no choice but to walk.
Only months earlier, Agha had shut down another factory. Located in the industrial area of Al-Amiriya, Aghadeel had produced ready-made garments since the seventies.
No explanations were given, no alternatives offered. And while thousands of workers who lost their livelihood had to grapple with the consequences, rumours of unpaid bank loans and negotiations with the government to re-schedule payment have been rife. Agha could not be found for comment on any of these theories. However, what is known is that prior to the factory's closure, workers had not been paid their full salary for two months, although with its closure they obtained compensation for the termination of their jobs.
"The workers laid off at both the 10 Ramadan and Amiriya factories joined efforts and, through an ingenious network of contact numbers and addresses, started taking their case to members of parliament, the General Union for Textile Workers and the General Federation for Trade Unions (GFTU), but they received no encouraging answers," explained a labour activist who has been following the case but preferred to remain anonymous.
The fruits of their labour were a paltry LE100 paid to them by the General Union on the eve of Eid Al-Fitr (the holiday marking the end of Ramadan), with the promise of an additional LE100 which was to have been distributed on Saturday, not to mention a promise to the effect that their factory would be reopened as soon as possible.
"Early on Saturday morning more than 1,000 workers aged 18 to about 35, with a good 40 per cent of them women, converged on the premises of the General Union for Textile Workers in the working-class area of Shubra Al-Mazallat, and as the hours passed it became clear that no money would be given out," recounted an eyewitness to the event.
In a frenzy of desperation and anger, the workers decided to start a protest march intended to end in a demonstration in front of the cabinet's headquarters across town. "They got as far as the corniche in the Rod Al-Farag area. Of course, their large numbers meant that they were blocking traffic and at that point the march was intercepted and surrounded by the police," continued the eyewitness.
Lawyers from the Land Centre for Human Rights documented events from that point on. As a result of the skirmishes in which riot police used batons, six workers, two of them women, were hospitalised for various fractures at the Mathallat General Hospital, and four people were seen being arrested. The Land Centre has submitted a request to the Prosecutor General asking for a formal inquiry into the whereabouts of the four missing persons.
Micro-buses were commandeered by the authorities to take the remaining workers back to the General Union for Textile Workers headquarters where a message from El-Sayed Rashed, head of GFTU, was conveyed to them. They were promised that the LE100 would, as of today, be given to the workers and were told that either Agha or the government would reopen the factory.
However, workers were not heartened by these messages. Only a few months ago, the owner of the Motahida factory, also in 10 Ramadan, borrowed LE23 million from local banks and then fled the country. The factory was shut down and 300 workers have been out on the street ever since. The legal action they took to get the state to take custodianship of their factory was thrown out of court on 30 April 2000.
Out of an approximate 1,200 factories operating in 10 Ramadan, which is hailed as a shining example of economic development and modernisation, an estimated 28 factories have shut down in recent months without giving the workers any severance compensation.
Workers are rendered vulnerable not only by their need for work, lack of protective legislation and inattention of Labour Offices but also by their lack of organisation. Only 17 of the 1,200 factories in the industrial city have official trade union committees.
After their foiled attempt at a demonstration, workers had no choice on Saturday but to take the promises and go home -- not that they will be quiescent in the meantime. "They are going back to parliament and will maintain pressure on the GFTU. They have problems that they have no choice but to address. They haven't been paid in months and they need their jobs back," explained the labour activist.
The mood among the laid-off workers is probably best summed up by the reaction of one woman worker when the head of security informed those gathered that their money would be ready on Thursday. "And what if we come and it is not here?" she asked. "Come back the Thursday after," was the flippant answer to which the woman responded with a wail of anguish before fainting.
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Labour on the fence - 11 - 17 May 2000
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