AIN Sokhna Port workers and DP World have reached an agreement to resume work in the Egyptian port, which has been shut down for 14 days.
Speaking on Thursday, workers’ representatives said a compromise had been reached with management and the port will reopen.
‘The workers will be subjected to an internal investigation and will not be dismissed,’ Ashraf Issa, general secretary of the port workers’ syndicate said.
State-run news agency MENA said that efforts made by presidential legal adviser Mohamed Fouad Gadallah, Suez Governor Samir Ejlan, head of Suez Security Directorate Adel Refaat and Secretary General of the Freedom and Justice Party in Suez, Ahmed Mahmoud, were integral in ending the standoff.
DP world officials and union representatives met inside the port, with Manpower Ministry adviser Nahed al-Ashry in attendance.
Refaat said that everyone is looking forward to work resuming normally.
Under the terms of the agreement, the company’s lawyers will question dismissed workers while a neutral committee follows up on the investigations.
The port workers went on strike to protest the unreasonable dismissal of eight of their colleagues. DP World said the workers were dismissed as punishment for offenses they allegedly committed.
Ain Sokhna, near the southern end of the Suez Canal, is Cairo’s main port for cargo from the Far East.
DP World signed an agreement with former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif in October 2007 that granted the company exclusive rights to run the port until 2032. DP World is the third largest port operator in the world.
Labour action forced DP World to temporarily shut down the port in February.
The Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions, together with a number of political forces, on Tuesday rejected the Cabinet’s decree that as of 1st November, stores must close by 10.00pm and cafes and restaurants by midnight.
The federation, along with the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the Tagammu Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, and some Nasserist parties, demanded community dialogue over the decision before it is applied.
They warned in a joint statement that businesses closing early would increase unemployment and make the streets less safe at night.
The statement stressed the necessity of considering the implications of the decision so that the negative impacts can be addressed if it is implemented.
Meanwhile, the tourist guide union has announced they will strike for three days on 15, 16 and 17 November, demanding better work conditions and employment opportunities.
The head of the tourist guide syndicate, Mo’taz Al-Sayed, stated in a press conference last Saturday at the union’s headquarters that the strike is the guides’ last resort after their demands have been repeatedly ignored by the Ministry of Tourism.
Hisham Al-Shattury, secretary general of the tourist guide union, said: ‘We’ve knocked on all doors with our demands, only to be met with silence, even though our demands require no money.’
Al-Shattury submitted his resignation from the union on Wednesday and vowed not to take it back until a portion of the guides’ demands are met.
The tourist guides are demanding the cancellation of mandatory training they must pay for in order to renew their license.
‘We aren’t against the idea of the training,’ Al-Shattury said, ‘but we refuse to pay so much money for an obligatory and illegal training when we’ve been suffering from unemployment following the January 2011 revolution.’
The high unemployment rate tourist guides have been suffering from for the past year and a half is not supplemented by any monetary assistance by the Ministry of Tourism.
‘Tourist guides in Jordan are paid $100 per day –, our daily wage doesn’t exceed EGY 50,’ Al-Shattury said, adding that the tourist guides’ pension amounts to a sum of as little as EGY 200.
The guides are also demanding a health insurance. ‘If a tourist bus has an accident, the tourists are insured and so is the bus driver, even the bus is insured; only the tourist guide is not insured and gets no compensation whatsoever.’
They also request amending law number 121 for the year 1983 in a manner fit to grant the union independence from the Ministry of Tourism. At the moment the union is restricted by its affiliation to the ministry.
Hiring only Egyptians as foreign language-speaking tourist guides is also among the demands the guides are calling for through their strike.
‘There are 16,000 Egyptian tourist guides who cover all foreign languages,’ Al-Shattury said. ‘Why hire foreigners when Egyptians are in dire need of getting employed?’
The guides are, in addition, demanding representation in international conferences.
The tourist guides’ union in Aswan announced their solidarity with the strike, saying they will take part in the strike in tourist sites in Edfu, Commumbo, Philae, the missing obelisk, the High Dam, the Nubian temples and Abu Simbil temple.
‘I agree that the tourist guides demands are valid and that their wages are not in the least bit impressive,’ Marwa Ghazy, operation manager at Royal Dream tourist guide company, said.
‘Nevertheless, we call on tourist guides to be patient instead of striking; take a stand without stopping the business.’
The tourist guides have been on several protests before, especially after tourism declined following the January 2011 revolution.
l Political forces agreed during a meeting with President Mohamed Mursi on Wednesday that the constitution drafting process should be concluded rapidly, and that Egyptians will have the final say in approving it, said presidential spokesperson Yasser Ali.
Ali said Mursi held a national dialogue with 65 representatives of political parties, trade unions, and universities on Wednesday at the presidential palace to discuss the future of the country.
Ali’s statements imply that the current Constituent Assembly will go on with the drafting process regardless of concerns expressed by the forces that boycotted today’s meeting.
According to the privately run news website Albedaiah, more than a dozen political parties and forces refused to accept the invitation of the president, citing what they called a lack of certainty that the meeting was serious in light of Mursi preserving the current Constituent Assembly.
The parties that boycotted the meeting included the liberal Constitution Party, the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Arab Democratic Nasserist Party, the leftist Karama Party, the Free Egyptians Party, the Socialist Popular Alliance Party, the centrist Adl Party, and the Popular Current.
The National Association for Change called for suspending the current Constituent Assembly until the Supreme Constitutional Court rules on the law that governed its formation.
It said in a statement that the first draft of the constitution does not reflect popular consensus or the spirit of the 25 January revolution.
