Cairo, March 08: Nationwide labor protests have continued in Egypt as workers at postal, subway and mining services walk out across the country, demanding better conditions.
In the cities of Kafr al-Sheikh and Fayoum, Egyptian Post workers staged protests on Monday, demanding better salaries and bonuses, the English edition of the al-Masri al-Youm reported.
Workers of the Subway Authority staged protests in Helwan on Monday. They wanted to substitute their temporary contracts with permanent ones.
“The authority’s president had on 17 January ordered permanent contracts for us. But his orders were not carried out even though we have been working here for 15 years,” said Islam Ahmed.
Miners in the Baharia Oasis also staged protests in demand of higher wages and better working conditions
Employees at the Ahli United Bank closed a number of branches in the capital, Cairo, and other governorates.
They also want amendments to health insurance policy and an increase in salary to cope with rising prices.
Similar protests were also held by mining and aviation employees.
The strikers called for resignation of aviation and transportation ministers, urging that the two ministers should also be tried for corruption.
Former Egyptian prime minister, Ahmed Shafiq, resigned on March 3 under mounting pressure from protesters who refused to decamp from central Cairo.
Shafiq who was appointed prime minister before President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in early February was criticized for seeming aloof to demands for change.
Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military after 29 years in power, bowing to a historic 18-day wave of anti-government demonstrations by people.
——–Agencies