For more than two weeks, protesters have been camping outside the headquarters of the Canal Authority in the city of Ismailia, east of Cairo, said Nasr Abdu, a representative of the workers. They want a 40 percent salary increase, he said.
Witnesses said protesters tried to storm the building Saturday, prompting officers to fire into the air, but Abdu denied the crowd moved on the building.
Labor unrest has surged in Egypt after the toppling of longtime President Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in February.
Meanwhile, an Egyptian court on Saturday suspended its order to remove the names of Mubarak and his wife Suzanne from public institutions.
Officials seeking to win presidential favor routinely named streets, schools, military installations and remote rural clinics after Mubarak in the years before the popular uprising which toppled him in February. Lawyers filed a suit seeking cancelation of the court’s original ban in April.
Judge Mohamed El-Sayed said the court had temporarily suspended its verdict pending a review of the case on Wednesday.
Mubarak has been ordered to stand trial on Aug. 3 on charges of killing of protesters, which could carry the death penalty. He is also accused of abuse of influence, wasting public funds and unlawfully making private financial gains.
He was admitted to hospital in April after reportedly suffering heart problems during his initial questioning.
Suzanne Mubarak was released from detention in May after agreeing to give up her assets but is still being investigated into whether she amassed wealth illegally.
She too was admitted to hospital after suffering symptoms of a heart attack shortly after she was ordered detained.
Their two sons, Gamal, who was once viewed as a possible future president, and Alaa, are also in jail and will also stand trial alongside their father.
Elsewhere, a top aide to Mubarak has been taken to a hospital in Spain after being arrested on a international warrant for alleged corruption, a medical source said on Saturday.
Hussein Salem, a businessman accused of squandering Egyptian public funds by selling gas to Israel below market prices, was admitted for heart problems on Friday, a day after his arrest, a judicial source said.
Egyptian state news agency MENA said on Thursday that Salem, who also holds Spanish citizenship, had fled the country on Feb. 3, eight days before Mubarak was forced to step down.
