The original editorial staff of Daily News Egypt (which you can now follow on @OriginalDNE) would like to inform our loyal readers of the latest developments since the paper stopped printing. We had chosen to not go public with the story and our ordeal out of decency but were today pushed to speak out because we have been denied our most basic right, the salaries for the month of April.
Since we were informed of the owning company’s termination (Egyptian Media Services, which published Daily News Egypt), we were told that we have no financial rights pending, even though this is in violation of the Labor Law. We were informed, however, that we will be paid our full salaries for the month of April. This was noted in the termination letter we were handed on April 22, 2012, in which we were also informed that it would be our last working day. On that day we took our belongings from the office and handed in anything we had,such as a video camera, etc. The next day the locks on the office door were changed.
We left the office and decided to pursue legal action since the company’s liquidator told us we had no rights to severance packages for years of service ranging from two to seven, and this can only be resolved with a court order, thus encouraging us to file a complaint at the labor office for our financial rights. We did so, preceded by a complaint at the Dokki police station on April 24 and have been talking to a lawyer to pursue next steps.
We waited till the beginning of May to obtain our salaries. When we found out that the salaries were ready at the office, we went there to pick them up only to be informed that the editorial staff will not be paid. Other departments in the company got paid.
The owners allege that we have passwords that we have not handed in. This is untrue as everything we had access to was left at the office when we were told it was our last day, including passwords to the wire services which are even written on a whiteboard in the news room. They have full access to all usernames and passwords from our work PCs.
We are not holding any passwords hostage. We want to take this chance to inform our readers and followers that the original DNE staff is no longer affiliated with this brand. We are however, sticking together and forming a new venture.
Please follow us on @OriginalDNE and stay tuned. Your support is highly appreciated.
*UPDATE: The editorial staff was suddenly contacted on Thursday (2 days after we filed the police report) and told that our April salaries are ready at the office. Apparently, those who claimed we were withholding passwords or anything related to DNE realized that they have had access to everything they needed all along. And we were, in fact, not withholding anything, passwords or otherwise, related to the company or the newspaper. This is what we had been saying all along, but it seems the police report we filed made them realize the gravity of the situation, of denying us our final salary, and so they took the baby steps required to find all the information they needed on the system, right where we left it.
We all picked up our April salaries on Sunday May 13, and signed a paper stating so as well as stating that we will drop the police report filed the previous Tuesday (when we were first denied our salaries). However, our complaint at the Labor Office — in which we are demanding our financial rights after several years of service to the company — still stands and will move forward according to legal procedures. Thank you for your support.
