اعتصام عمال الدقهلية للمياه مستمر Dakahliya Water Co. Workers Sit-in

منذ أكثر من اسبوعين قام العاملون بشركة مياه الشرب والصرف الصحى بالدقهلية بالاعتصام يطالبون بتطهير الشركة من الفساد المتسبب فيه بعض رؤساء القطاعات ومديرى العموم وعمل مشروع الرعاية الصحية ورفع كفاءة العمال

[Sign] Raise your voice from among the people; we are sick of all the injustice.

[Sign] The Nilawiyin district and the motors shop:
We call for our rights and the realization of our legitimate demands
And we will not return to our homes until we take our rights.

We are using peaceful pressure right now,

But the realization of demands does not come without negative pressure.

We've been stopping people from blocking roads for a while now,

For a while now we've been stopping them from turning off water and sewage stations,

If we turned off just a single station, this country would drown in sewage water, it would be catastrophic.

We want social justice. The revolution was in the name of social justice, do we need one in every corner to realize this?

Do we need January 25th in every government establishment in order to enact social justice?

These people here have been sitting in for three weeks,

They've been eating, sleeping, living in the company. Until now, the authorities ignore us.

Total silence; it's as if there are no authorities.

It's as if this sit-in is taking place and no company exists for it,

As if there's no authorities, no holding company responsible for us.

The Dakahliya Company was one of the most stable and silent ones, with no unrest, out of concern for the country and its situation and so on,

But suddenly we're the only ones asked to tighten our belts,

And the people negotiating with me are all earning tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds,

Don't they ever tighten their belts?

They can keep wearing big pants and keep growing, with no need to tighten their belts - that's no problem?

So the problem is the worker is the one expected to tighten his belt.

Some days we stay at work from 8 am till 12 am, or 1 or 2 am,

And sometimes there are pipe explosions that keep you at work till daybreak,

In the network, if one pipe explodes, you could keep working on it from 8 till midnight, then till the dawn prayers,

Then when you come to take your wage, you find nothing.

Those in a position higher than you earn their money, and when you look for your rightful wage, nothing.

Our contracts are for 4 years. The first 2 years, our salary was 270 pounds,

One day I was climbing out of the sewer and a car drove over my head, cracking it open, and my colleagues here saw this,

No one gave a damn.

And I'm a member here, a worker in the company, insured, with a permanent contract,

I went to my supervising engineer that evening, I was working the night shift, I went to him at 9 pm, and he told me, "what do you want from me?"

He told me to look out for myself, to park my bike or a row of rocks to mark my spot,

No one did anything for me. I had to shoulder the whole thing, paid for my treatment, even though I have insurance. Nothing.

What did we get? Where are our rights?

This is my colleague here, he works at Aga, we work together, his name is Mohammed Etman,

We were working the morning shift together. His leg was cut open,

And no one gave a damn. The supervisor was useless. They didn't even let him go home,
-He didn't let me go home,

He told me to finish my shift and then go home, or to find someone to replace me.

One time a colleague called and asked me to fill in for him because his wife was giving birth and he needed to go be with her,

This indeed happened. Now the water network has 3 or 4 workers and the head of the network,

We cover about 12 towns, over about 400 square kilometers,

Meaning we need transportation. Some people work behind a desk and get 7 pounds a day as transport allowance,

We don't get that allowance. We have to go whenever they call on us, morning or night or whenever there's an emergency. Our official hours are from 8 am till 2 pm,

Once you go home, just as you're having a bite, they could call on you to come fix something wherever, and we have to go,

And when we try to file for overtime, they don't like it.

We have to pay for the nails we use, out of our own money.

If the maintenance department doesn't have certain spare parts, we go buy them ourselves,

They say they'll reimburse us. So we give them the receipts, and they say "we have no money"!

"Where do you want us to get the money to pay you,"

They tell me to bring them a receipt, and I do, so why don't they reimburse us?!

My friend here has receipts, so do I, so do they,

We got them for the company. And we still haven't been reimbursed till today.

So we're taking money out of our own pockets and giving it to the company.

To say nothing of the cement that we handle with our bare hands,

They don't hire a digger, they say "why else are you employed here as a worker,"

They say we're supposed to dig. OK fine. Cement, like the road you drive on with a car,

Can you cut that up with your bare hands?!

We cut it with our hands! We split it open with drills and hammers.

Here, our hands are completely blistered from the hand drills and hammers.

Arbitrary dismissal.

First of all, we are standing in solidarity with those people who are demanding their rights.

And we are demanding our rights, for those people who were fired, by General Ahmed Abdeen,

All of whom were fired for security reasons, not for any dishonorable reasons, just arbitrary dismissal.

And anyone who has connections gets in, works, and then gets thrown in the street,
-[Sign] The Dakahliya company workers demand equality with the holding company and the return of those arbitrarily dismissed. No, no to injustice. And it is our right to return to our work.

[Sign] The Dakahliya company workers demand equality with the holding company and the return of those arbitrarily dismissed. No, no to injustice. And it is our right to return to our work.
-I'm a man responsible for a family,

[Sign] The Dakahliya company workers demand equality with the holding company and the return of those arbitrarily dismissed. No, no to injustice. And it is our right to return to our work.
-And I've nothing but my arm,

I mean, if I should fall ill or anything should happen to me, how will I help myself, how will I support my household?

I have nothing. I have no income except for the company.

And I've been dismissed. And we're here in solidarity with those people from the company.

Their demand first, and ours to follow.

We won't let go of our rights. We're demanding our rights, and justice.

I've been here for 24 years. Every so often, someone dies. Most of them, from Hepatitis C and liver disease.

I estimate that around 77 percent of those who die in our line of work, before or after retirement age, die from Hepatitis C or liver disease.
-Because of the sewage.

One of our colleagues here had to get two stent insertions, and I know at least 3 people who were blinded, they can't see.

Because of the sewage. I work on the water network, but the workers in both water and sewage are completely abused and brutalized.

Ahmed, come here,

He has two braces, and Hepatitis C, because of the sewage,

No one stood by his side, no syndicate or management or anything,

Only his colleagues who - excuse me for being so explicit, Ahmed - only his colleagues, donate something small at the end of each month.

That's it. But no syndicate helped him, and he had to get two stent insertions in his heart,

They give to some people, but not to others.

I've been covering 18 sewage stations for 24 years, in the Markaz district.

There's pollution, and if a pipeline explodes we can spend up to three days working on it, and we find our bonus is 30 or 40 pounds.

I mean really, from 20 to 30 pounds,

It's a monthly thing, and not everyone gets it, this month I didn't get my bonus,

Why did they cancel it? I don't know. I'm someone who needs to spend 1,050 pounds on treatment every month.

These two bypass surgeries alone, the medications cost 410 pounds.

And who's helping me aside from my fellow workers? There's no one in the company, no healthcare, nothing,

All our rights are destroyed.

A manager sitting at his desk picks up the phone and orders me to take all the workers to go fix a clogged tank, the main one,

Meaning its depth is 7 meters, so a worker's blood is on your hands if he dies,

How can I ask a worker to go so deep into a tank, and you know the worker will actually listen to me and go in,

I mean and there's no respiratory equipment or oxygen or anything, nothing,

Nothing hi-tech. They tell you to go get equipment from storage; what equipment?!

What am I supposed to get - what ventilators?

Where am I supposed to get a compressor to put down there and give people air to breathe?

Once I see one of the young workers start to go yellow in the face I tell them to come back up,

They want to make the workers keep working, and they can keep earning money off their backs,

That's what happens. And we're up to here in the injustice, already,

It's not my responsibility. I see the corruption but I can't do anything about it.

They need to investigate. But they are the ones sending us the corrupt management,

They replace one with the other here and there, they shift them around, if there's a complaint there they send him to me,

Then if I discover someone's skill and talent, the company takes someone from me and sends him elsewhere,

They send him to another company, then they discover him there and he get sent elsewhere,

Is there no one in the country anymore who can manage these companies?!

People are standing up for themselves, and are steadfast, and God willing their rights will be realized,
-[Sign] The Aga district: all the workers are sitting in until our rights are realized.

But the depression and despair is because the people we complain to, are themselves corrupt.

The people we go to and complain, they are themselves corrupt.

How can you ask the criminal to investigate the victim? They are the ones who killed us.

[Sign] Raise your voice from among the people; we are sick of all the injustice.

[Sign] The workers in the water network
Equality
(Right) The holding company in Cairo. (Left) The Dakahliya company for water and sewage treatment.
Justice is the foundation of property.

[Sign] Important notice: no to rumors and divisions in ranks. The sit-in will continue until the realization of our demands.