Around 400 workers from the Tanta Flax and Oils Company began an open-ended sit-in last Monday outside of the Egyptian Council of Ministers’ Cairo headquarters, just off Qasr el-Aini Street. One week later the protest is still in full swing, with employees eating and sleeping amid a tight cordon of security personnel.
“We haven’t been paid a single piastre in two months,” said one protester. “And we haven’t received our full salaries in eight months now.”
According to another protester that spoke to Al-Masry Al-Youm, the vast majority of company workers had taken out bank loans which they are now unable to pay back, leaving a number of them at serious risk of dispossession.
Nevertheless, a full week of sitting on the street has failed to dampen their spirits. Protesters continue to shout slogans intermittently, calling on Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to return ownership of the privatized company to public ownership.
Workers say they have survived the past week’s protest largely through the goodwill of passersby, who have brought them food and blankets.
The lack of access to lavatories, however, has proven troublesome. “We’re at a loss for bathrooms,” said one demonstrator. “Many of us have had to go in the alleyways here and there.”
Yet the mood that pervades the sit-in is one of stubborn persistence, summed up in one of the workers’ favorite chants: “We’re not moving until they give us our rights back.”
