News

Workers at TE, Egypt’s sole telephone landline provider, say they will call an open strike and cut landline and internet services countrywide if their demands to dismiss the company’s upper management are not met.



They are demanding the resignation of CEO Mohamed Abdel Rehim and the company’s board of directors, whom they accuse of corruption and of causing financial losses to the company. They also want the release of five colleagues arrested recently for having held Abdel Rehim hostage for 21 hours in the company’s Ataba offices. The five have been charged with attempted murder.



Mohamed Helmy, president of TE’s independent syndicate in Cairo, said,“Our main demand is the resignation of Mohamed Abdel Rehim and the release of our five colleagues.”



Abdel Rehim was appointed CEO of the company in May 2011. Strikes have already affected the company’s telephone directory services in Cairo and Alexandria, and at Aswan’s main telephone centre.



TE, which serves roughly 10 million subscribers and boasts some 55,000 employees, noted in a press release issued Sunday morning that work was progressing “as usual,” stressing that no workers’ strikes were currently taking place.