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."
حسام الحملاوي on 19 Mar 09For the workers, the transfer of the factory to a private investor has been a catastrophe. The stories they told sounded very similar to that of other recently privatized companies like Telemisr or Tanta Linen Co. Since 2007, the new management has refused to pay bonuses worth a total of 10 million pounds, while allegedly paying 6 million pounds cash to about 200 workers that agreed to early retirement. Since it was privatized, the losses of the company has more than tripled - even before the global financial crisis started. Workers accuse the new owner of deliberately sabotaging the factory to eliminate competition, and of buying dysfunctional old machines from his other factories in Pakistan and Indonesia at trumped-up prices as a way to transfer resources abroad
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