Labor and Social Protests Index during September 2018

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information ANHRI

Freedom of expression of workers and social movements Program

Labor and Social Protests Index during September 2018

Introduction

September is the month of repeated annual protests for students and parents, with the return to schools, and payment of school fees. This year, however, there has been a significant change in protests in terms of numbers, reasons and means used.

Although most parental used protests in previous years to object the increased school expenses, most of the protests this year protested the lack of schools that have the capacity to accept students from the start, where the complaint was repeated as the transfer occurs from primary school to schools far from their place of residence, or for not completing the annual renovation of schools, or merging two schools in one school, which formed a pile of students in the classrooms, leading the students and their parents to protest.

The program monitored (60 protests) during September, among which (18 labor and professional protests) and (42 social protest) summarized as follows:

First: Labor and professional protests:

During September, the program monitored 18 labor and professional protests:

Strikes (5 cases)
Hunger strikes (3 cases)
Vigils (2 cases)
Threatening to protest (2 cases)
A petition or a complaint (2 cases)
Protest Stand (2 cases)
Sit-in (1 case)
Suicide or attempt to commit suicide (1 attempted suicide)

All of this is broken down as follows:

Strike:

The coaches and players of the youth sector of Mahalla entered a full strike on September 8^th, on either training or participation in periodicals for all age groups for the youth sector, due to non-payment of salaries in addition to salaries of players, for more than three months by management. The club’s treasurer succeeded in ending the 72-hour strike, after the paying the due financial rights.
The drivers of the service line between the city of Damietta and Basratah village, entered a strike to work on Sunday, September 9^th, in protest against the poor condition of the road, and the lack of preparation, resulting in several incidents, in addition to the destruction of cars. The strike resulted in the meeting of the head of Damietta center and city, with a number of drivers, and the mayor ordered some of the smashed parts to be fixed until sanitation work was completed.
Dozens of cleaners, cosmeticians, services and mechanical campaign drivers entered an open strike, in the city council of Zineya in Luxor, from 7:30 on Sept. 19^th, to demand the allowance for Friday and Saturday, like all other employees of the Center and the district.
About 105 temporary workers in the village of Magawish tourist city of Hurghada (A subsidiary of Misr Tourism Company) entered a strike on September 25^th, to demand the appointment, like their colleagues, and not to fire them after the decision to close the village for renovations from the middle of next December, or distribute them to other hotels of the company like their appointed colleagues.
Thousands of workers at the Aroglu Egypt factory in Ismailia, entered a strike on September 29^th, as they gathered in the factory hall to claim the cost of living allowance, which is approved by law while a large number of private and investment companies refrain from disbursing them. Ismailia governor went to the factory and promised workers to communicate with the board to meet all their demands.

Hunger Strike:

The director of the general administration of financial and administrative affairs, in Gharbia, Abul Fotouh al-Shabasi, entered a hunger strike in his office on September 10^th in protest against a decision to return him to the post of director of financial affairs only.
On Wednesday September 19^th, Dr. Mahmood Mehdi, consultant obstetrician and gynecologist at Al Kharga General Hospital in Wadi Al-Gadid, announced that he had entered a hunger strike, in protest of the decision to transfer him to the position of Director of the Family Planning Department at the Directorate. Mahdi continued the hunger strike for three days until he ended it on Friday, September 21^st after the intervention of a member of the House of Representatives.
Hundreds of temporary workers at the oil company of Belaime belonging to the Mohamed El Sewesy Company entered a hunger strike on September 27^th and demanded that their salaries, which do not exceed 1,200 pounds per month, should be increased since they don’t even cover their basic needs for them and their families. The South Sinai Manpower Directorate continued to work with the workers and raised their demands in a memorandum.

Vigils:

A number of workers of the “Evergro specialized fertilizers” factory in the industrial area of Sadat City in Menoufia, gathered on Sunday September 2^nd, after the death of their colleague “Mohamed Fawzi” immediately after his fall during his work, due to massive negligence in the maintenance of equipment, demanding all workers to strike.
Dozens of teachers of the Education departments of Banha and Kafr Shukr in Qalubia, gathered in front of the General Directorate of Qalubia, on Thursday, September 13^th; to protest the decisions to transfer them to fill the deficit departments of Shebin Al-Qanater and Khanka and in particular, describing the decision as “arbitrary and compulsory,” given the distance of these places from their residences.

Threatening to protest:

On Sunday September 2^nd, a group of high-ranking railway workers organized a sit-in at the railway station in Ramses to demand the settlement of the highest qualifications in accordance with Law 5 of 2000.
On September 4^th, employees of the General Electric Projects Company “Illegate”, the Alexandria and Burj Al Arab sectors, organized a protest on September 5^th at the company’s headquarters in Youssef El-Gendy Street in Cairo to protest the collapse of the company’s condition, given the company’s deteriorating situation.

Petition or Complaint:

On September 8^th, the staff of the Arab African International Bank launched a Facebook page of about 2,500 people protesting the transfer of Hassan Abdullah and demanding that his remain as the bank’s chief executive after news of a decision to appoint him as an adviser to the Central Bank of Egypt.
The workers of the Egyptian Real Estate Tax Authority presented on September 12^th, a memorandum to the Minister of Finance demanding that they consider their salaries, which are not commensurate with the rise in prices, demanding the Minister to approve a monthly incentive (wage system complementary to the interests of income) permanent for all workers in real estate taxes, in light of rising prices and low wages.

Protest:

On Sunday September 9^th, dozens of nurses and medics of Assiut Governorate held a protest in front of the Health Directorate to protest against the continued scarring of the Ministry of Assiut University Hospitals, despite the end their appointment 6 months ago. The president of the University of Assiut announced his rejection of the request of a number of nurses
A number of owners of construction companies held a protest in the Egyptian contracting company (previously known as Mokhtar Ibrahim) on September 9^th to claim their arrears over three years ago.

Sit-in:

On Monday September 17^th, dozens of water and sanitation workers gathered at the village of Salhia in the headquarters of the company. They searched the land to demand installation and change the monthly collection rate set by the company’s commercial sector officials.

Suicide or attempted suicide:

Tariq, the employee of Menia University, tried to commit suicide on September 16^th, by going up to the top of the central administration building on campus. He threatened to throw himself as an objection to his transfer, demanding that the decision be rescinded, prompting staff and vice president to step behind him and persuade him to back down.

Second: Social protests:

During the month of September, the program monitored 42 social protests. Their distribution was as follows:

Vigils (13 cases)
Protests (12 cases)
Suicide (11 suicides or attempted suicide)
Demonstrations (2 cases)
Roadblocks, peace march, petition or complaint, and threatening to protest: ( 1 case each)

All of this is broken down as follows:

Vigils:

On September 17^th, dozens of residents of the village of Al-Damah gathered the KomUmbo center in Aswan on the railway strip in front of the Village crossing, and they put tires to press the security forces to search for a dead man in Al-Maleh canal. The security forces arrested 15 people who participated in the vigil, and by presenting them to the prosecution, they decided to detain them for 15 days pending investigations.
Some parents of students at Imam Ali School in Abu Tig, Assiut, gathered on September 23^rd because they were affected by the transfer of their children to Taha Hussein School for the evening sessions because of the maintenance of Imam Ali School.
On Sunday, September 9^th, a number of parents gathered in front of the office of the Director of the Education Directorate in Luxor because their children were not accepted in kindergarten classes under Luxor Educational Administration or distributed to schools far from their place of residence. The Director of the Directorate met with the parents in the presence of the kindergarten official to absorb the anger of the people.
Some parents gathered in front of the experimental Ras Al-Suda Preparatory School on Al-Jaraj Street on September 19^th after news of the sale of the school and its transformation into an international school.
The parents of the students at the school of martyr Ahmed Nada primary in the area of Abu Shehata in the village of Abuatwa in Ismailia, gathered on September 23^rd, because of the accumulation of children in the classroom, which reached more than 120 students per class, and the head of the school used police forces that took the parents from inside the school.
On Sunday September 23^rd, the pupils of Dawidar Primary School, Mahmudiya Educational Administration, in Beheira gathered near the school, which was removed for six years, to rebuild it.
Students of Al Rawda Elementary School gathered in the center of Sinbillawin in Daqahlia on Saturday September 22^nd, inside their school, which was removed for more than 15 months and was not rebuilt again. Parents refused to let their children go to a school in the neighboring village and quickly demanded that the school be built for fear of their children from the dangers of the road while going to the alternative school.
On Sunday September 23^rd, hundreds of parents gathered in the village of Mahalla al-Qassab in Al-Mahalla Al-Kubra district in Gharbia to protest against the failure to complete the maintenance of the new building and refused to transfer their children to Mitt Al-Seraj Primary School for the third year in a row. The village is at least 3 kilometers away, which has led to the exposure of children to road accidents in the past years. The director of East Mahalla Educational Administration intervened and succeeded in containing the crisis.
A number of Sahel residents gathered in Cairo on Sunday September 23^rd due to the exhaustion of an extension of the school of Ammar bin Yasser, the lack of eligibility to study, and the danger to their children. The Sahel Police Department and the officials of the Educational Buildings Authority intervened and asked the parents to give them one month to rehabilitate the annex.
On September 21^st, those who rent 213 fish farms in Damietta organized a protest in front of the General Authority for Fisheries Development in Shatta, on the road to Damietta Port Said, to express their rejection of the decision to remove fish farms.
Dozens of Ministry of Housing (MOH) housing reservers gathered in the city of Qaha on Monday September 10^th due to the Ministry of Housing’s delay in giving them a receipt of their apartments. The mayor of the city council met with the protesters at the local unit headquarters.
A number of people from Damietta gathered in a row in front of North Damietta electricity engineering and South Damietta electricity engineering on September 1^st due to the withdrawal of balances from the household electricity meters. This caused a state of anger among the residents, especially after repeated it more than once, at the beginning per month.
A number of residents of “Naga Atman”, belonging to the villages of “Azab”, in Qena, gathered in front of the Office of the province, on September 5^th, to meet with the governor, and protest the crisis of drinking water shortage for 5 months continuously. The governor ordered the officials of the General Court to open the Diwan hall to receive the people and heard their complaints.

Protests:

Parents organized more than 100 children on September 3^rd and held a protest in front of the Assiut Governorate General Office due to the absence of places for their children in the private schools in Assiut governorate, because the approved age for acceptance was 5 and half years while their children were only a few months beyond five years.
On Sunday September 10^th, a group of residents of San al-Hajar in Sharqia organized a protest rally in which they raised a number of protest signs, in protest against a number of trailers and cranes transporting three pharaonic amulets and a statue outside the city. The vigil was repeated on September 11^th, until Sharqia governor met a group of people.
Hundreds of residents of the Ras al-Hikma region, east of Marsa Matrouh, staged a protest on September 15^th to protest what they called the evacuation of the land and the displacement of original peoples, rejecting government decisions on expropriation.
Japanese school-teachers, trained in Mubarak Education City on the 6^th of October, organized a protest inside the city’s courtyard to protest the poisoning of 10 teachers after eating an unhealthy meal.
On Sunday September 16^th, dozens of parents of students from the experimental schools staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Education, rejecting the decision of the Ministry of Education to cancel high-level books in the list of kindergartens and the first grade in language schools.
On September 23^rd, the parents of the Martyr Medhat Talaat School of the Banha Educational Administration organized a protest in front of the school because students were transferred to another school far from their place of residence.
Parents of students of an experimental language school in Banha in Qalubia organized a protest on the morning of September 23^rd in front of the governorate building on the first day of school, in protest against the appendage of their children to a preparatory school for boys in the government building and shared bathrooms, and the same morning and surround the area market random, and parents refused to enter their children school.
Dozens of students of nursing institutes in the various governorates of the Republic organized a protest on September 25^th in front of the Ministry of Higher Education in protest against the increase in the minimum level of coordination of admission to the nursing colleges at the various universities which exceeded 94%, compared with previous years. .
Zamalek employees and workers staged a protest stand in front of the African Football Confederation (CAF) headquarters on September 29^th, in protest against the decision of the African Football Confederation (AU) Disciplinary Committee to suspend Mortada Mansour, president of Zamalek club, for a full year and fined $ 40,000, after a statement he had made earlier against Ahmed Ahmed, chairman of the African Union and Amr Fahmy, secretary of CAF.
On Saturday September 29^th, dozens of residents of Al Warraq Island staged protest vigils against the three main ferries, while the Al-Warraq Misdemeanors Court considered a case of 22 who refused to sell the island without a permit, against the government’s decision to forcibly evict them from their lands and homes.
On Sunday morning, September 30^th, a number of parents of the schools organized a protest in front of the Ministry of Education to denounce the Ministry’s decision to abolish the high standards and limit the English language of the Ministry.
On Sunday September 30^th, dozens of students from the Workers’ University organized a protest against the decision to limit the University’s grants to the award of an expired vocational diploma rather than a bachelor’s degree.

Suicide or attempted suicide

Ahmed, 20, in Al-Shoka village, Abu Kabeer police station, east of Sharqia, committed suicide on September 3^rd because of a severe psychological crisis due to the pressures of life.
A housewife, 41-year-old Wafaa S., killed herself by setting fire in her body on September 4^th, due to financial distress. A totally charred corpse arrived at the Demerdash hospital.
A 24 year old worker worked in a garage, killed himself, on September 9^th, by hanging himself in the 6^th of October City, Giza Governorate. Investigations revealed that his suicide was due to a financial bad condition, marital disputes and a bad psychological condition for not having children.
A.R., an 18-year-old student at the Agricultural Institute, died by hanging in his home on September 9^th in Fayoum for failing to raise a lawyer’s fee to defend his father.
Waleed M., 47, a worker on committed suicide on September 9^th, by firing a live bullet at himself in his apartment in the second constituency of Shubra al-Khaymah.
Alsaid M. A., 27, and a resident of Maa’ssara in the center of Belqas, Daqahlia, committed suicide, on September 16^th by taking the pill of toxic yield for a financial crisis.
Tariq, 23, has a diploma, does not work and lives in the city of Beni Mazar on killed himself September 20^th by throwing his body down the train of Upper Egypt No. 776, heading from Cairo to Sohag. While the security denied that novel, stressing that he fell under the wheels of the train during the attempt to independence.
Abdullah M., 27, a resident of the new village of Brambal, in Menia al-Nasr in Daqahlia, committed suicide on September 2st for a financial crisis.
Shaima, 18, committed suicide two days after her marriage, on September 21^st because her parents refused to fulfill her dream of completing her studies at a private university with high expenses and insisting on putting her in a low-cost government institute.
At the beginning of the school year, a housewife committed suicide after throwing herself from the fifth floor of Al-Nahda district in the Department of the City of Peace. Her 14-year-old student tried to commit suicide after seeing her mother in the street. The body was taken to the hospital, after a dispute with the husband about the school uniform and fees.
E. worker in the second decade of his life committed suicide. His family confirmed that there were no disputes with his son and anyone and that he did not suffer from any psychological illness.

Demonstrations:

Dozens of fans of the Ghazal Mahalla club demonstrated in Gharbia on September 15^th to demand the return of Saber Eid, the technical director of the first team of the technical leadership, after Eid had resigned from the training of the club following the recent defeat by the team in front of Damanhur. .
Dozens of people of the deceased and injured in the dialysis unit in the hospital, on Saturday, September 15^th, demonstrated, after learning of the incident, condemning gross negligence. The director of security Sharqia had received notification of the death of 3 people on dialysis machines during dialysis, and injuring 12 others.

Roadblocks

In the early hours of Sunday September 30^th, residents of the village of Al-Khayyatah, Damietta, gathered to block the road between the village of Al-Khayyah and Ezbet Al-Borg, protesting the passage of heavy transport vehicles loaded with salt, which falls on the road leading to accidents.

Peaceful march:

Dozens of members of Al Rowad Sports Club, 10^th of Ramadan City, organized a massive rally in front of the Police Department on September 6^th to celebrate the departure of Mohammed Al Kashif, the manager of the swimming pool at the club.

Petition or Complaint:

A number of postgraduate students at the University of Alexandria filed a complaint to the university president on September 26^th stating that they were affected by the University’s decisions to increase the expenditure of postgraduate studies in an exaggerated manner, especially after passing the initial tests critical to their admission to postgraduate studies. , The Minister of Higher Education and the Prime Minister to intervene immediately.

The waving of the protest:

On September 24^th, a number of parents of the students of the Manial State Language School organized a protest in front of the headquarters of the Egyptian administration to protest the transfer of students to the school on the evening of Ali Al-Jaram because of maintenance work at their school.

Third: Geographical distribution of labor and professional protests:

Cairo governorate topped the labor and professional protests for the month of September with four labor protests, followed by the Gharbia with 2, and then the governorates of Luxor, Ismailia, Red Sea, Giza, Qalubia, Menia, New Valley, South Sinai, Damietta, Qena, Assiut, and Menoufia were among the most prominent governorates in Cairo. ) with 1 protest for each of them.

Fourth: Geographical distribution of social protests:

Cairo topped the social protests by 9 social protests during the month of September, followed by Qalubia with five protests, then came Giza and Sharqia in with four protests each, and in fourth place came Daqahlia and Damietta three protests each, in the fifth order came (Assiut, Alexandria, Western) with 2 protests each, and in the sixth and last place came (Aswan, Luxor, Ismailia, Lake, Fayoum, Menia, Qena, Marsa Matrouh) with one protest each.

Fifth: sectorial distribution of labor and professional protests:

Construction and its materials, transport and communications, health, personnel ranked first with two protests (2) each.

In the second order, came the sectors (insurance, banks, education and scientific research, sport, petroleum, textiles and textiles, tourism, water, sanitation, electricity, chemical industries and suicide) came with one protest per sector.

Sixth: Sectorial Distribution Social protests:

The education and scientific research sectors took the lead in the social protests during the month of September with 18 cases of protest.

(Suicide – suicide attempt) due to poor economic conditions in the second ranking was 11 cases in September.

Sports and localities ranked third with three each

In the fourth place came the sectors (housing, water, sanitation and electricity) with two protests each

In the fifth and final ranking came the sectors (health, security, agriculture, irrigation and fishing) with one protest each.

Thus, from the previous presentation:

It’s clear that the number of protests increased a marked increase compared to August, and the increase is due to the return to schools which is an interest to more than 20 million students and their families.

A large number of protesters resorted to suicide to escape from the deteriorating economic conditions and the program of free expression of workers and social movements monitored 11 cases of suicide, the same as the previous month of about 10 cases per month.

Noteworthy this month is the increase in the number of governorates that witnessed protests during September, with 17 in social protests and 14 in labor protests.

In the labor protests, we see that there are sectors that witnessed a remarkable growth in protests compared to the previous months. The construction sector took the lead and we believe that the economic crisis has affected the sector, which has witnessed steady growth during the past period.

Labor and Social Protests Index during September 2018 pdf

Labor and Social Protests Index during September 2018 word

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information ANHRI

Freedom of expression of workers and social movements Program