Minister of Manpower and Immigration Nahed Ashri announced earlier this week that the country's new labour law will soon be presented to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb for approval. Ashri explained that the legislative committee responsible for the law, which she had decided to restructure, would review the final wording of the draft of the new law in the light of comments received by the ministry, as a prelude to putting it to social dialogue before approving the bill. The labour law defines the relationships between workers, employers, trade unions and the government. It addresses the tripartite relationship between employee, employer and union and generally deals with employees' rights at work to ensure employment standards under minimally socially acceptable conditions. The demand to change labour law 12/2003 has been one of the most important demands of workers in the thousands of strikes and sit-ins that have taken place since the 25 January Revolution. Even if workers are accused of causing problems for the country at a time when it cannot be expected to deal with many more, the government also realises that workers' demands cannot be ignored, since further strikes could damage the prospects of the future president-in-waiting. The former Hazem Al-Beblawi government tried to contain the strikes by approving a minimum monthly wage of LE1,200 for some public-sector workers. But other public-sector employees, excluded from the wage increase, were angry and mobilised their own strikes in response, renewing pressures for labour reform. Fatma Ramadan, executive board member of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), said that “the new labour bill is biased towards business owners against workers and unfair to employees even when compared to the current labour law.” There was confusion between dismissal for errors committed by the worker and the termination of contracts for economic reasons, she said, the latter raising the risk of unfair dismissal in violation of the constitution. Ramadan pointed to a number of other flaws, such as facilitating dismissal for more reasons than in the existing labour law, as well as reducing workers' rights in the case of unfair dismissal or in the event of death. Employers can also assign workers different jobs from those mentioned in workers' contracts. “If the factory closes for economic reasons, workers' rights are left undetermined. The old law stated that any worker dismissed from work could get two months pay for each year worked if he had been in the job for five years. But the new bill refers workers to the emergency fund to get their financial rights, which will not pay them more them six months at the most based on 75 per cent of their basic salaries. I don't believe that this is fair to workers,” Ramadan added. Collective bargaining has been deleted from the stages of mediation and has been replaced by the intervention of advisory committees. Although group bargaining is one of the most important methods used by workers, “employers usually don't feel committed to implementing the collective agreements they reach with the workers or unions. This has happened repetitively in the past, and the new law doesn't oblige owners to respect these agreements or impose deterrent penalties if they don't,” Ramadan said. If workers do not obtain their rights, they will resort to strikes and protests, which are the last step for them, she said. Purportedly acting in the best interests of the workers and the production process as a whole, the draft law sets limits on the right to strike and conditions for protests, making any strikes or protests that do not meet these illegal. The bill also bans strikes at vital or strategic entities, without further defining what these are. A prime ministerial decision extends the ban on strikes to national security and military production facilities, hospitals, medical centres, pharmacies, bakeries, civil defence facilities, drinking water installations, electricity, gas and sewage facilities, telecommunications facilities, ports and airports and even educational institutions. Yet, these facilities have witnessed the highest number of strikes in recent years. “The law is very restrictive. The strategic and vital facilities must be defined throughout by careful discussion,” Ramadan said. On a more positive note, the draft law is supportive in addressing important issues such as the employment of women, the work of foreigners, and child labour, as well as the work of the labour court that helps to resolve disputes arising from the application of the labour law and regulations and decisions. With unemployment running at 13.4 per cent and thousands of young Egyptians entering the job market each year, some businessmen and employers, such as Hamada Al-Qalyoubi, who owns a private textiles company, had hoped that the new law would address the problem of unemployment, putting mechanisms in place to provide better training as well as reducing the closure of facilities. “We all hoped for a balanced and unbiased law to govern the relation between the workers and employers. You can't have a law that is all rights without referring to duties as well,” Al-Qalyoubi, a member of the Chamber of Textile Industries, said. He said that the labour bill was very significant for labour-intensive industries such as textiles. “If investors are faced with hostile workers, they will probably abstain from investing in such industries that create jobs and will prefer to go into other sectors with less labour problems and less hassle,” he added. Egypt's economy grew by 2.1 per cent last year, not enough to create jobs for a fast-growing population, and the government has cut its growth forecast for the fiscal year ending in June to between two and 2.5 per cent. Al-Qalyoubi added that he did not believe that factory owners or employers wanted to change the current law. “The new suggestions or modifications of the labour law haven't been represented to the Chamber yet, and [we] haven't been engaged in any dialogue concerning the draft so far,” he stated. Even though Al-Qalyoubi confirmed that he did not believe that employers should always have their own way, he had strong opinions about unfair dismissal, saying that it was a business owners' right to dismiss workers “who don't meet the terms of their work without giving any reason”.
