[Sign] Raise your voice from among the people. We are sick of all the injustice!
[Sign] Nilawiyin district and motor shop: We want our rights and the fulfilment of our legitimate demands. Otherwise we won't return to our homes!
We are using peaceful pressure right now,
but our demands will not be fulfilled without negative pressure.
For a while we've been stopping people from blocking roads and
turning off water and sewage stations.
If we turned off just one station, this country would drown in sewage water.
It would be a catastrophy.
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 a January 25th in every part of government to enact social justice?
These people here have been on a sit-in for 3 weeks.
They've been eating, sleeping and living in the company. The authorities ignore us.
There is total silence, as if there are no authorities.
As if this sit-in takes place without a company and authorities.
The Dakahliya Company was one of the most stable and quiet ones.
There was no unrest, out of concern for the country and its situation.
However, suddenly we're the only ones asked to tighten our belts.
The people negotiating with me are all earning tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Do they ever tighten their belts?
They wear big pants and put on weight, but don't need to tighten their belts.
And that's no problem?
The problem is that the worker should tighten his belt.
Some days we stay at work from 8 am until midnight, 1 am or 2 am.
Sometimes pipes explode, and that keeps you at work till daybreak.
If one pipe explodes you could keep working from 8 am until midnight, and then till the dawn prayers.
When you come to get your wage, you will find nothing.
Those in higher positions earn their money,
but when you look for your rightful wage, there is nothing.
We have 4-year-contracts. The first 2 years we got 270 pounds.
One day I climbed out of the sewer and a car hit my head, cracking it open.
My colleagues here saw this, but no one from the company gave a damn.
I'm a worker of the company, I am insured, with a permanent contract.
I went to my supervising engineer that evening.
I had worked the night shift. I went to him at 9 pm, and he asked: "What do you want from me?"
He told me to look out for myself, to park my bike or place rocks to mark my spot.
No one did anything for me. I had to pay for my treatment, even though I have insurance.
What do we get? Where are our rights?
This is my colleague Mohammed Etman here. He works in Aga.
We were working the morning shift together. His leg was cut open, and noone gave a damn.
The supervisor was useless. They didn't even let him go home.
- He didn't let me go home, but told me to finish my shift or to find someone to replace me.
One time a colleague asked me to fill in for him because his wife was giving birth,
and he needed to be with her.
Now the water network has 3 or 4 workers, and the head of the network.
We cover about 12 towns, over 400 square kilometers, so 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, day or night,
or whenever there's an emergency. Our official hours are from 8 am till 2 pm.
Once you go home, as you eat, they can call you to fix something somewhere, 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 pocket.
If the maintenance department doesn't have certain spare parts we buy them ourselves.
They say they'll reimburse us. But when we give them the receipts, they say: "We have no money!"
"Where should we 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 friends here have receipts, so do I.
We got them for the company. And we still haven't been reimbursed till today.
So we take our own money and give it to the company.
Not to mention the cement we handle with bare hands.
They don't lease a digger and ask: "Why else are you employed here as a worker?"
They say we're supposed to dig. Cement, like the stuff on the roads.
Can you cut that up with your bare hands?!
We split it open with drills and hammers.
Here, our hands are completely blistered.
Arbitrary dismissal.
We are in solidarity with those people who are demanding their rights.
We demand our rights, for all who were fired by General Ahmed Abdeen.
All were fired for security reasons, not for any dishonorable reasons, just arbitrary dismissal.
Anyone with connections gets in, works, and then gets thrown out on the street.
[Sign] Dakahliya workers demand equality with the main company and the return of the arbitrarily dismissed. No to injustice! It is our right to return to work.
I am responsible for a family, and I've nothing but my hands.
If I fall ill or anything happens to me, how will I support myself and my family?
I have no income except for the company.
I was dismissed. We're here in solidarity with the people in the company.
Their demands first, and ours to follow.
We won't let go. 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 diseases.
77 percent of those who die in our line of work, before or after retirement age,
die from Hepatitis C or liver disease.
- That is because of the sewage.
One colleague had to get two stent insertions, and I know at least 3 people who turned blind.
Because of the sewage. I work for the water network.
The workers in both departments, water and sewage, get abused and brutalized.
Ahmed, come here!
Ahmed has two braces, and Hepatitis C, because of the sewage.
No one stood by his side, no syndicate, no management or anyone. Only his collegues...
Ahmed, excuse me for being so explicit: Only his colleagues donate some at the end of each month.
That's it. No syndicate helped him, and he had to get 2 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 3 days working on it.
And we should get a bonus of 30 to 40 pounds.
I mean, it is really from 20 to 30 pounds.
It is paid monthly, and not everyone gets it. This month I didn't get my bonus.
I don't know why they canceled it. I need to spend 1,050 pounds on treatment every month.
The medications after the 2 bypass surgeries alone cost 410 pounds.
And who helps me apart from my fellow workers? There's no one in the company.
There is no healthcare, nothing.
All our rights are destroyed.
A manager picked up the phone and ordered me to take all workers to fix a clogged tank.
A main one, meaning it is 7 meters deep. A worker's blood is on your hands if he dies.
How can I ask a worker to go so deep into a tank? The worker will listen to me and go in.
And there's no breathing equipment or oxygen or anything.
Nothing hi-tech. They tell you to go get equipment from the storage, but what equipment?!
What am I supposed to get? Ventilators?
Where should I get a compressor so I can give people down there air to breathe?
When a young workers turns yellow in the face I tell him to come back up.
They want the workers to keep working, so they can keep earning money off their backs.
That's what happens. We have to deal with so much injustice.
It am not responsible. I see the corruption but I can't do anything about it.
They need to investigate, but they send us corrupt managers.
They replace one with the other, they shift them around.
If there's a complaint they send him to me.
But if I see someone's skill and talent, the company sends him elsewhere.
They send him to one company, then they discover him there and sent him elsewhere.
Is there no one in the country anymore who can manage these companies?!
[Sign] Aga district: All workers stage a sit-in until our rights are respected.
People are standing up, and, so God wants, their rights will be respected.
There is depression and despair because those we complain to are corrupt themselves.
How can you ask a criminal to investigate the case of the victim? They are the ones who kill us.
[Sign] Raise your voice from among the people. We are sick of all the injustice!
[Sign] The scales of the workers in the water network - (right) The holding company in Cairo - (left) The Dakahliya company for water and sewage treatment. The foundation of property is justice!
[Sign] Important notice: No to rumors and divisions among our ranks. The sit-in will continue until the fulfilment of our demands!