The annual conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will take place in Geneva on 28 May, in which the ILO will reveal the names of countries included on its black list for violating labour rights. Last year, Egypt was put on the ILO list for failing to issue a new law allowing workers to establish independent trade unions. Since there has been no change since then on this and other ILO commitments, experts expect that Egypt will remain on the black list. “Officials have been saying that the government will pass laws on freedom of association and follow ILO recommendations, but nothing has happened during the past year,” Mohamed Ansari, a researcher at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, an NGO, told Al-Ahram Weekly. ILO recommendations include allowing workers and employers to establish and join organisations of their choice without official authorisation, these being independent and not able to be dissolved or suspended by administrative order. The ILO also recommends that workers have the right to establish and join federations affiliated to international organisations of workers and employers. A draft law including the needed amendments was prepared by Kamal Abu Eita, the former minister of manpower and immigration, but it has not been presented to the cabinet for approval, according to Ansari. Ansari said that Egypt's current labour legislation did not meet ILO recommendations, since it prohibited workers from going on strike unless they were members of a union or syndicate, a condition that does not apply in ILO regulations. Although current laws permit workers to go on strike, they do not protect their financial rights while on strike, contradicting the idea that a strike is a legal right in ILO conventions. Current legislation regulating employer-worker relations states that workers should receive two months' compensation for every year they have worked in a company if they are fired, even unjustifiably. However, Ansari said that the legislation does not give workers the right to return to their jobs if they are unfairly dismissed, something that is not in line with the 2014 constitution or international regulations. Sameh Mansour, a worker in a private industrial company, said that business owners sometimes acted to avoid their responsibilities towards their employees. Under the present law, if the contract of a worker is renewed for more than a year he is considered to be a permanent worker and should have all the rights of one, including social and medical insurance, Mansour said. However, sometimes employers end such contracts a few days before renewing them in order to avoid their responsibilities to workers, he added. Stating a lower basic salary in contracts is another trick employers use to reduce their social insurance obligations, he said. “As a result, workers' pensions on retirement are not enough for their basic needs,” he added. The lack of supervision of factories and companies by the Ministry of Manpower jeopardised workers' health and rights, according to Mansour. “Many enterprises do not follow international standards and use harmful materials in production processes, ignoring workers' health because they are certain that no inspection visits will be made,” he claimed. Due to high poverty rates in Egypt, the government is often not able to control child labour, which is internationally prohibited. Ansari said that children were working in some sectors in Egypt where their lives were in danger, but they were paid high salaries for doing so. Hopes of change had come after the 25 January Revolution when the government introduced a draft law that regulated the formation of workers' associations in accordance with Egypt's commitments to the ILO. Following the submission of the draft law by Ahmed Al-Borei, then minister of manpower and immigration, Egypt was removed from the ILO blacklist, but the law itself never materialised.
