UPDATE: 10 workers still in custody after authorities conduct arrests amid ongoing Gharbiya factory strike for minimum wage

Ten workers at a state-owned jeans factory in Gharbiya remained in custody on Tuesday, their whereabouts still unknown over 48 hours after their arrest from an ongoing labor strike, according to sources who spoke to Mada Masr.

One of the striking workers told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that laborers at the Nahdet Samanoud Textiles Company continued industrial action on Tuesday.

The strike came after the workers spent months requesting that the public industrial sector company implement the LE6,000 minimum wage — a demand echoed in strikes across the country where wages remain unaffected by the new requirement set for the sector earlier this year.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, security forces arrested ten of the company's workers, including four women. All of those arrested were questioned at the National Security Agency headquarters in Mahalla al-Kubra, Gharbiya, according to the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS), a labor advocacy and research group.

CTUWS shared testimonies from eyewitnesses to the arrest who were kept anonymous “to protect their personal safety.” According to the testimonies, the ten detained workers were arrested from their homes, with security personnel taking a worker away while blindfolded with his hands cuffed behind his back.

The CTUWS also noted on Tuesday that workers with over 20 years of service at the Samanoud Company earn an average wage of LE3,500, with the majority of them being women, most of whom are the sole providers for their families. Most workers are forced to take on additional jobs to support their families, the striking worker told Mada Masr.

Company workers complained for months as they were receiving their salaries in two installments, the second of which could often be delayed for over a month, the wife of one of the arrested workers told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. They also objected to the fact that salaries mostly did not exceed LE3,000-LE3,500, despite the new minimum wage decision, she said.

After the strike began, management at Samanoud pressured her husband to try to convince other workers to abandon the labor action. Security forces later came to their home and arrested her husband at 5 am on Sunday, she continued, adding that she is concerned for his health in custody as he “suffers from high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, and did not receive his medication.”

Commenting on the other arrests, she stated that in two instances, security forces conducting the arrests also took workers’ relatives into custody. 

“There was one person on strike with the company. Security forces went to her home and didn’t find her, so they took her son. When she found out, she went and turned herself in at the Samanoud police station so they would release her son,” she recounted. “Another one wasn’t there, so when they didn’t find him, they took his two brothers. When he found out, he went to the police station and turned himself in, and they left.” 

Authorities have refused to inform lawyers of the location of the ten detained workers, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights who is following the workers’ case told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity. He added that the wife of one of those detained sent a telegram to the public prosecutor in Mahalla al-Kubra on Sunday, and sent another telegram on Monday to the first public prosecutor in Tanta to document the incident and demand information about their place of detention.

Workers have said they will not end the strike until their colleagues are released and their demands for minimum wage are met, according to CTUWS. 

The organization noted that MP Laila Abu Ismail of Samanoud visited the striking workers on Monday morning at the factory, attempting to persuade them to resume work before a scheduled  meeting with a prospective investor seeking management and operational rights for the company on Thursday. 

Samanoud has a years-long history of ignoring worker demands for increases to low wages, said CTUWS General Coordinator Kamal Abbas, who noted that management has also used punitive measures to pressure workers into early retirement on prior occasions. 

The company is likely being considered for liquidation, he added, as the state looks to downsize its role in industry. Part of the company’s land was offered for sale in an auction in 2020.

During the past decade, the company has witnessed frequent strikes over wages, to demand an end to layoffs, and to protest mismanagement that led to the company’s closure in 2014 and 2019.

Abbas said that the workers had received promises in 2014 from then-Industry Minister Mounir Fakhry of plans to develop the company, but no steps were taken in that direction.