Management at EMAK Paper Manufacturing Co. in Ain Sokhna, Suez governorate, tricked workers into ending their 10-day sit-in demanding higher wages on Tuesday, while 11 workers faced internal questioning on Wednesday over their participation, two workers told Al Manassa.
According to one of the workers, management did so by moving the attendance registers outside the company gates. When the workers, who had been sleeping inside the company grounds, went out to sign in at the start of Tuesday’s first shift, security staff barred them from signing in or re-entering the site, which effectively ended the sit-in, one worker who requested anonymity told Al Manassa.
The worker said 11 colleagues traveled to the company’s Cairo offices on Wednesday for questioning. The company placed several others on compulsory leave for a week after they refused to accept notices summoning them for questioning.
Ten days earlier, workers at the company, a subsidiary of Kuwait’s Al-Kharafi Group, began an open-ended sit-in demanding higher wages and allowances and the resumption of profit-sharing payments suspended since 2020.
In earlier revelations to Al Manassa, workers complained of low pay, averaging no more than 5,500 Egyptian pounds (about $107), and the lack of potable water, saying they had to drink treated seawater that is typically used in production, while management provided bottled water to white-collar employees only.
A second worker said Suez labor office officials filed an official report against company management on Tuesday over occupational health and safety problems and serious failures to protect workers.
“We work on old machines from the 1960s. The company owner brought them here and installed them when he set up the factory, putting many workers at risk. The company has not provided workers with protective clothing or safety footwear for years. We are working in torn clothes,” he added.
The two workers who spoke to Al Manassa feared management would dismiss some of those summoned for questioning as punishment for joining the sit-in. “They want to make scapegoats of our colleagues so we don’t demand our rights again,” they said.
In 2012, EMAK workers held a sit-in lasting about two weeks over low wages, suspended profit-sharing payments, and management’s failure to implement an agreement reached with them. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm’s reporting at the time, two workers self-immolated, killing one, as dozens of workers went on hunger strike over management’s intransigence.
