The Conference of Egyptian Democratic unions meets with

the ILO delegation

At 2 pm on Wednesday 15/11/2017 the executive committee of the Egyptian Democratic Unions met with a delegation from the International Labour Organization in the premises of the Center for Trade Union and Worker Services. The meeting revolved around the draft law on union organizations that the parliament has tentatively approved.

The attending union members presented their opinions about the draft law and the most important and the most prominent notes they have on it clarifying that all these notes were expressed in the hearing held by the labour committee on Saturday November 4^th.

The union workers stressed that the draft law presented to parliament is a copy of law number 35 for the year 1976 that had been issued 41 years ago with the addition to a few amendments that did not manage to adjust its directive. Since the law abided by the same division of chapters and articles of the current law, it suffers internal contradiction and made it subpar regarding the demands of the current reality and the necessary guarantees of labour freedoms and the right of Egyptian workers to form their unions without restraints.

Despite the large number of articles worthy of amendment or cancelation, the union workers asserted their suggestion of amending some articles in the project- that has not been subjected to the final vote- which are the following articles, deemed most important:

• Article number 3 from the draft that include discrimination that deem it unconstitutional as it grants the official “Federation of Egyptian Labour Unions” the status of a legal entity denying other union organizations “independent of the federation” the same status.
• Article number 2 that enumerates and includes the categories are subject to that law and which excluded some categories such as fishing workers, and pensionerswhoseunion remains one of the most active and efficient.
• Article 10 that is considered a clone of the infamous article 7 in law number 1976 which insists on the pyramid structure of unions and forces one example of union organization (the example of the Federation of Egyptian Labour Unions” and does not acknowledge, the regional or sector unions that Egyptian workers took the initiative of organizing in the past few years.
• Article 11 that restricts the formation of more than one union committee in each establishment –using indirect wording- and that includes the condition that the members of each establishment’s union committee and the number of workers in the establishment should be above a certain number (the council tentatively agreed to 250 while this is supposed to be re assessed as per the request of the government).. It is known that banning the formation of more than one committee and forcing these numbers as a condition deviates greatly from the settled criteria and contradicts labour convention number 87.
• Article 12 that restricts the formation of general syndicates and unions through impossible conditions with regards to the number of members.
• Article 14 that lacks the conditions of disentanglement and generalization that should be present in a legal text and appears to be tailored to the interests of particular individuals and it is suggested that it should be cancelled since there is no need for it with the amendment of article number 42.
• Article number 42 with regards to the conditions of nomination to the boards of unions which is supposed to be the concern of the union and its general assembly in addition to that nomination to the executive committees should be the right of all members of the general assembly
• Article number 43 with regards to the duration of the union cycle and the conditions and procedures of elections that is supposed to be the mandate of the general assemblies that have to set up their statutes without intervention. The rules and regulations stated seem to be copied from law number 35 for the year 1976 that regulated procedures suitable for the sole organization that was in place in governmental administrations and public sector units.

The union workers presented a file to the organization that includes papers issued about them with regards to the law, especially the statement issue with regards the notes that were raised in the hearing committee as well as the notes taken by CTUWS about the law (the comparison table) and suggestion to amend some articles of the law presented now to the parliament.

Finally, the attendees clarified that they insist on abiding by the constitution and activating article 76 that guarantees the right to form unions and syndicates as well as article 93 that necessitates that the Egyptian government respect international treaties and convention that it has signed and fulfill its obligations towards it. The Egyptian legislator should therefore abide by labour convention number 87.