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 أعلنت حركة «مهندسون ضد الحراسة» أنها أكملت استعداداتها لتنظيم الإضراب العام والشامل لكل مهندسى مصر العاملين فى القطاع الحكومى أو القطاع الخاص على السواء، وفى جميع قطاعات الهندسة من النقل والبترول والاتصالات والمدنى، للمطالبة بوقف الاعتداء على أموال المهندسين المهدرة من قِبل لجنة الحراسة على النقابة والمفروضة عليها منذ أكثر من 15عام

While the Shebeen al-Kom factory is making losses, and Indorama is using this as an excuse to cut back on salaries and incentives, how about the mother company? While the Sheeben factory has reportedly made losses of 69 million Egyptian pounds over the past two years, in August 2008 Indorama commissioned "a brand new state-of-the-art compact yarn spinning plant of 26,000 spindles" in Indonesia, and announced an investment of 4 billion rupees (roughly 400 million Egyptian pounds) in a new manufacturing plant in India. Just a few days ago, it was reported that Indorama is establishing "the world's biggest fertiliser complex within its premises at Eleme, River State [Nigeria] at a cost of $2.5 billion."

Over 200 workers at the Egyptian National Circus staged a four-hour protest on Sunday, demanding an increase in their salaries and accusing the Ministry of Culture of neglecting the circus.

The workers protested from 1 pm to 5 pm in Agouza. They also expressed concern over the Ministry of Culture’s intention to privatize the circus.

The protestors demanded that their salaries be equal to those who work at national theaters.

"We are victims of privatization," one worker called Mustapha told me. "We are not demanding any raise or anything, just our salaries. We are creating a profit, so where is our rights? We are not going to give up. We want to live!"

Despite the reputation of Scandinavian countries as progressive, just and socially advanced, our capitalists are just like any others, it seems... especially when operating in "third world" countries like Egypt or China. I was just sent this link to an article about A.P. Moller-Maersk, the Danish company that owns 45% of the Egyptian Drilling Company (EDC), which was recently accused of laying off employees on fixed contracts while hiring new workers on temporary contracts. The report in Danish daily Politiken recounts accusations concerning a container factory in Dongguan in southern China, owned by Maersk, where workers are said to suffer from health hazards, corruption within the management, and humiliating work rules - including a ban on strikes (with no basis in Chinese law according to an expert interviewed in the article) imposed in June 2008 after a series of strikes and protests for better work conditions. A number of reports and statements in Danish and English are available at the Hong Kong-based Globalization Monitor.

Workers from the company have been on strike since April 29, 2009, when the decision to reduce incentive payments was issued.

Kishk criticized what he described as the “inability” of the Ministry of Manpower to exercise real influence over employers.

Privatized in 1997, Nile Cotton has factories in the governorate of Minya and in the Delta.