Egyptian workers take to the streets as inflation continues

With the inflation in food prices, demonstrations and the specter of strikes have engulfed Egypt, with workers demanding more money and support, The New York Times reported Monday.

The call to strike was made via cell phones and e-mails as workers took to the streets as a sign of discontent with the current economic situation.

“Riot police officers massed in the central Tahrir Square and stood in formation outside the lawyers’, doctors’ and journalists’ syndicates,” the article says. “At the lawyers’ syndicate, a few hundred protestors stood on the roof and on a balcony chanting ‘Down, down, Hosni Mubarak.’”

In response to the outcry, the government warned workers that it would “take necessary and resolute measures toward any attempt to demonstrate, impede traffic, hamper work in public facilities or to incite any of this.”

According to the article, the workers’ major grievances are “rising prices, depressed salaries and what opposition leaders here said is an unprecedented gap between rich and the poor.”

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