Sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Egypt is risking inclusion in the list of countries violating the International Labor Organization (ILO) conventions during the International Labor Conference that will be held in the Swiss city of Geneva June 3-19. The sources said that if Egypt is included in the list of countries violating the ILO conventions for the second year in a row, it will be because it did not heed the remarks of the organization as regards the application of the Trade Union Freedoms and Forced Labor Conventions. They added that Egypt would be included on the list during the conference this year for its existing system of public service, which forces young men and women who have completed their studies and are not wanted for the draft to work in the development of rural and urban communities, the commercial and agricultural coops, and in the factories.
The sources said the organization asked the Egyptian government to take the necessary measures to amend the legislation on that civil service and furnish all the data on the young people who have been relieved of it. They said Egypt will be subject to severe criticism during the conference, as happened last year, due to its violation of the Trade Union Freedoms Convention. They added that if the Egyptian government is asked during the discussions about the report of the Legal Experts Committee on the trade union freedoms and on its banning of trade union pluralism as well as the reasons for not amending the labor legislation in Egypt to be in line with the ILO Conventions, it will request to be given a chance till next year to carry out the required modifications to the labor legislation in parliament. It will also claim that it has many legislations related to national reform that have priority, and that it is about to complete the amendments of the labor laws for submission to parliament in its next session. Meanwhile, Hussein Megawer, President of the Trade Union Federation, held a meeting the day before yesterday with ILO officials in the presence of Mustafa el-Said, Director of the Social Dialogue Project in Egypt, to discuss common issues between Egypt and ILO in addition to some projects that will be applied in Egypt relating to the Social Dialogue Project that was launched by ILO last October in Cairo, with a grant of 2.5 million over 3 years until 2011.
