CAIRO: About 126,000 workers lost their jobs, while 58 workers attempted to commit suicide for failing to meet the basic needs of their families in 2009, a recent human rights report said. A total of 133 deaths and 1,206 injuries were monitored in the same year due to the lack of effective occupational safety and health measures, the report added. Released Saturday by the Land Center for Human Rights, the 75-page report is the 83rd edition of a series of publications on economic and social rights. “The center's lawyers worked on the report from December 2009 until May 2010,” the director, Karam Saber, told Daily News Egypt on Sunday. “It is based on statistics published in newspapers, complaints filed by workers and monitoring protests [and similar activities] held throughout the year,” Saber added. The report highlighted that workers' calls for change were directly linked to the negative ramifications of the government's privatization drive. The push for privatization, the report noted, resulted in many workers losing their jobs or suffering a deterioration in their standard of living. Egypt is home to 5.6 million civil servants representing over 25 percent of the total workforce, about 5.1 million private sector workers and 2.9 million in the private investment sector. The workforce in the private business sector diminished to reach about 700,000; 300,000 of them work in the industrial sector. The report emphasized the increasing rates of workers' protests in 2009. Protests by civil servants represented 47 percent as well as 37 percent by private sector workers and 16 percent by public enterprise sector workers. Last year witnessed over 175 protests including 70 sit-ins and 43 strikes by private sector employees, while civil servants held about 226 protests including 76 sit-ins and 46 strikes. The report stressed the deterioration of the conditions of private sector workers due to employers' non-compliance with wage increase decrees and overdue bonuses. According to the report, the government, represented by the Ministry of Manpower, took no efficient measures against business owners to force them to abide by the law. The report further indicated that labor unions did not play their expected role. It even hinted that some unions acted against the interests of workers in several protests, which led to the emergence of new leaderships outside the scope of official syndicates. Temporary employment is a crisis facing over 500,000 employees who are often deprived of all labor rights, such as social and medical insurance, and who never secure permanent contracts, the report said. The report recommended swift responses to protesting workers' demands, putting an end to the trend of unfair dismissal and introducing a minimum wage of no less than LE 1,200 per month to meet basic needs. The center also called for offering permanent jobs to temporary workers and applying international labor standards, urging the government to intervene to stabilize the increasing cost of living. Commenting on the obstacles the center faced when compiling the report, Saber said that data collection was difficult because the Manpower Ministry and trade unions gave scant information which meant that they had to resort to workers' accounts and press reports. In May, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Children of Earth Foundation for Human Rights released a similar report, describing 2009 as the toughest year for Egyptian workers to date.
