Around 600 workers at IFFCO Egypt, which produces edible oils for the UAE-based food manufacturing group IFFCO, have been locked out by management after a strike in protest at IFFCO’s failure to implement a collective agreement signed last year. MENA Solidarity Network received the letter below from the IFFCO Egypt Workers’ Union committee, which has been…
Hundreds of disabled education workers in Zagazig, capital of Sharqiyya province in Egypt, are appealing for solidarity after their sit-in was attacked by the police last week. The workers, who are employed by the Education Department as teachers and administrators on poverty pay are demanding permanent contracts. Umran al-Khalifa told MENA Solidarity Network that the…
Dr Mahmoud al-Fardan worked in the Accident and Emergency department at Salmaniyya Hospital in Bahrain. He fled Bahrain in the wake of the brutal crackdown against protesters in 2011, having seen dozens of his colleagues arrested and sentenced to long jail terms. He witnessed the storming of Salmaniyya Hospital by the riot police and army…
Hassan Jumaa Awad, president of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions, is facing up to 3 years in prison for organising strikes at the Southern Oil Company in Basra. An Iraqi court is now set to hear the case on 19 May, after previous hearings have been postponed multiple times because the oil company’s lawyers…
Pictures by Geoff Brown النقابيين من مانشتر في بريطانيا يرسلون التضامن إلى اللجنة النقابية وعمال إيديال ستاندرد في مصر وقال جويف برون من اتحاد النقابات في المدينة “عندما سمعنا عن النضال زملاءنا في إيديال ستاندرد ضد الفصل التعسفي ومن أجل الحريات النقابية قررنا عن نرسل رسالة احتجاجية للشركة وسوف نبلغ أعضاء النقابات في مانشتر عن…
Hind Abdel Gawad, a trade unionist and revolutionary activist from Zagazig in Sharqiyya province, Egypt, talks about the challenges facing the workers’ movement in Egypt in a video message for Manchester TUC’s May Day rally, 4 May 2013. Hind, who played a leading role in strikes by Information Centre workers before the revolution, visited London…
Translation of joint statement calling for protests to mark May Day 2013 (picture of May Day protest 2012 by Gigi Ibrahim via Flickr) Workers have been coming out every day for years to demand their rights from the businessmen who were protected by Mubarak’s government in the past and now by Morsi. We have the…
Workers at the bathroom units factory in Tenth Ramadan City near Zagazig in Sharqiyya Governorate have been occupying their factory since March 2013 in protest at the dismissal of their trade union committee. Gangs of thugs accompanied by some of the company foremen attacked the sit-in on 21 April. Conditions in the factory are very…
A national strike by Tunisian teachers in elementary schools on 24 April was solidly supported, according to the Secondary School Teachers’ Union’s Facebook page: 22 out of 24 provinces reported 80% or more teachers taking part in the strike. Thousands of teachers walked out in the second day of action this month in protest at…
by Anna Livingstone and Kambiz Boomla One of the most moving moments during our visit to the World Social Forum in Tunis was to see the protest of mothers and families of the martyrs of Kasserine, wailing with grief as they held the pictures of their massacred relatives, and asked for justice for the wounded…
MENA Solidarity Network 