The strike aims to protest "low salaries and deteriorating living conditions."

“BBC journalists in Cairo also express their deepest concern towards what they see as systematic discrimination against them, from the management in London, in terms of payment policies,” the statement said.

The staff expressed their commitment to escalating measures for as long as management continues to disregard their demands.

This is the second strike by the British public broadcaster’s Cairo office in as many months, coming on the heels of a one-day strike on 14 June after a year of failed long negotiations with management.

“We have repeatedly asked the managers to review our salaries in light of the sharp devaluation of the local currency since March [2022],” the statement revealed.

The management in London at first ignored these demands, then offered small “increases that never matched or made up for the severe losses the staff endured.”

The BBC management had resolved similar crises in other bureaus in the region, the Cairo office staff said, adding that this deepened their sense of discrimination.

The BBC faced a similar situation in its office in Turkey, which is also dealing with soaring inflation like Egypt, in mid-January when the Istanbul office staff announced a strike after six months of failed negotiations.

By the end of the month, the two sides were able to reach a satisfactory agreement on staff salaries.

In an emailed reply to Ahram Online, a BBC spokesperson said: “We recognise that the economic situation in Egypt is having a significant impact on our staff and we are increasing salaries by 27% between March and July this year to mitigate the levels of high inflation in the country.

“We are disappointed staff have taken strike action and continue to engage with them to find a resolution whilst acting within our market pay policy which is applied consistently across the BBC, globally. BBC News Arabic continues to serve audiences with news and information.”

Support from Egypt’s Journalists Syndicate
 

In a last-ditch attempt to avert the strike, the staff met with management at the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo on Thursday, according to the syndicate’s head Khaled El-Balshy on Sunday.

“The representatives of the management did not present anything except a promise to study the demands and return after two weeks,” El-Balshy said in a post on his official Facebook account.

He declared his solidarity with the Cairo staff, accusing the BBC management of “procrastination and insistence on discriminatory behaviour.”

In early July, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) announced that Egypt’s headline inflation reached an all-time high of 36.8 percent.