Over 200 employees of Care Services on strike for better wages at Sinai peacekeeping forces camp

Over 200 employees at Care Services in Sharm el-Sheikh are participating in an open sit-in to protest for higher salaries, more benefits and better housing.

Care Services is contracted to provide maintenance, cooking, cleaning and gardening services for the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), a peacekeeping force that has been stationed in the Sinai Peninsula for over 40 years, under the Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

In the strike, which began Wednesday last week, workers are demanding their salaries be doubled to help them deal with increasing prices, one of the workers on strike told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity.

Record-high inflation is a symptom of the broader economic crisis Egypt is currently facing. Workers at Care Services, who live on-site, say their wages are not enough to buy basic necessities and that the housing provided by the company requires renovation.

Prices nationwide have increased on average by more than 30 percent in November when compared to the previous year, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. But staff members haven’t seen their salaries increase in years, according to the worker. Dalia Moussa, who manages workers issues at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights noted that the last rise was in 2020 but that salaries did not exceed LE4,000 at the most.

They raised their objections in 2023 and the MFO administration in Rome instructed Care Services to pay out a temporary 57 percent increase to the basic salary for the last  few months of 2023, or until new contracts for the workers were approved.

But in November, the company’s contracting director announced that in the new contracts, the workers would only be getting an additional 24 percent to their basic salary.

Workers staged a one-day sit-in on November 26, accusing him of not giving them their full dues. They also demanded an increase in other benefits and allowances because they had no health insurance or transportation allowance and asked for better housing from the company, said Moussa.

Afterward, meal allowances were increased to LE700, said the worker, but employees find the increase insufficient and say the figure is based on food prices that are already outdated given recent price hikes. The company said it would cover employees under the comprehensive health insurance system, but workers demand they receive private insurance, which many other companies provide.

Now, around 259 workers in the Sharm al-Sheikh camp are participating in the strike, the worker said, adding that employees at other peacekeeping force sites in North Sinai’s Sheikh Zuweid were not on strike because their management threatened to dismiss them if they did.

Workers are accusing the company's management of paying them salaries that are lower than the amount approved by the MFO’s administration with Care Services and are demanding a 100 percent salary increase, as well as a revision of employment contract terms related to workers dues between the company and the peacekeeping forces.

Care Services managers have already committed to present some new terms in the contract between the company and the peacekeeping forces on Monday as a result of strike negotiations, the worker said.