The Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress EDLC filed report No, 488 for the year 2014 with the Public Prosecutors Office against Kamal Abu Eita former Minister of Manpower, Mustafa el Sebaei Head of the Central Department for Labour Relations and Negotiations Affairs / Ministry of Manpower, Yusry Marouf president of the Independent Trade Union of the Workers of Alexandria Co. for Container Handling in addition to the Ministry of Manpower and its Trade Union Liaison Department.

EDLC stated in its report that the first and the second defendants (the Minister of Manpower and his Deputy) sent a letter to Misr Banque on 23rd February 2014 (i.e. one day before the resignation of the previous cabinet of ministers). The letter asks the bank to adopt the signature of the third defendant (Yusry Marouf) on EDLCs bank accounts in his capacity as the president of EDLC (which is not true). The Minister of Manpower and the Ministrys employee issued the said letter knowing for sure that the information it included is not true. This step completes the Ministrys contraventions against the rights of EDLC which reached serious limits. The contraventions started by the Ministrys procrastination and pretention of not understanding. Then they developed to express blatant intervention in EDLCs affairs and to support Yusry Marouf the discharged former president of EDLC. The Ministry used all of its competence and all of its intervention mechanisms. EDLC requested to investigate the following facts:

On 16/1/2014 the General Council of EDLC notified the Ministry of Manpower with the decisions issued by its extraordinary session held on Tuesday 7/1/2014 to withdraw confidence from Yusry Marouf and to discharge him from EDLC presidency and from the membership of its executive board. The extraordinary session elected Mr. Saad Sha’baan as acting president of EDLC and Mr. Hany Mohamed Afeefy as acting general secretary. EDLC attached with the notification a copy of the extraordinary sessions minutes which provided in details the discussions of the attendees, the legal justification of the decisions and the voting process on these decisions. 

After a lot of procrastination the representatives of EDLC obtained a letter from the Ministry of Manpower No. 59 dated 28/1/2014 addressed to Misr Banque to adopt the signatures of EDLCs representatives according to the decisions of its General Council dated 7/1/2014 (i.e. the signatures of Saad Sha’baan the acting president and of Soheir Hamdy the treasurer). But EDLC was surprised by another letter bearing No 68 and dated 30/1/2014 addressed to the same bank requesting it to freeze EDLCs bank account until the issuance of the decision of the extraordinary meeting for the general assembly which the letter claimed that it would be held on 1/2/2014. This second letter is completely incorrect and illegal. On 1/2/2014 the general council of EDLC sent to the Ministry of Manpower a memorandum which contained the following objections: 

The general council of EDLC according to EDLCs statutes is the only body which has the competence to elect the members of the executive board which includes the president, the vice presidents, the general secretary, the treasurer and the other officers. Hence, the general council has the genuine right to withdraw confidence from the members whom it had elected. 

The refusal of the administration to recognize the decision of the general council in anticipation of an extraordinary meeting for the general assembly is groundless and unjustifiable. Such a refusal is a direct aggression against the right of the general council which is the competent body to withdraw confidence it is also an aggression against the right of EDLC and its members to put their statutes without interference from the government or from its administrations. Moreover, it is an aggression against trade union rights and freedoms.

What the Ministry of Manpower gas done with its letter No. 68 is that it had taken a decision from its side to suspend the decision of EDLCs general council until the meeting of the extraordinary general assembly is held. This means that the Ministry has added and applied, without any legal competence, a provision in the statutes which was not existing (the addition means that the decisions of the general council regarding its executive board can only be implemented after holding an extraordinary meeting for the general assembly).

 The fact is that the president was elected by the majority of 22 members of the general council then confidence was withdrawn from him by the majority of 31 members of the general council or in other words by consensus of all the attendees and the approval of 8 absentees who sent proxies. Confidence was withdrawn only from the president of the executive body which was elected by the general council on 26/4/2013. All of the remaining elected members (other than the president) remained as they were. The only change was that the former general secretary was elected “acting president”, and the former assistant general secretary was elected “acting general secretary”.

The interference of the Ministry of Manpower in EDLCs affairs and its attempt to impose on it regulatory rules rather than its own statutes is against the new constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt which secures the trade unions independence and their members right to put their own regulations by themselves. Moreover, such an interference is completely in contradiction with the ILO Convention No. 87 regarding the trade union freedoms and rights and a serious violation of these rights and freedoms. It does not correspond with any law let aside the law on trade unions and the expected law on trade union freedoms.

Although the assumed general assembly did not convene that today, the Ministry of Manpower has kept the situation as it is. Then the General Council was surprised by an anonymous message handled on social media signed by the EDLC (without any officers names). The message contained an invitation for an extraordinary general assembly on 21/2/2014 according to Article 10 of EDLCs statutes.

Article 10 of EDLCs statutes stipulates that an extraordinary meeting for the general assembly may be held according to the demand of one third of its members, two thirds of the General Council members or two regional conferences and that the executive body, according to EDLCs General Councils decision, will invite the general assembly and take the necessary procedures provided that the agenda and the necessary documents  for discussion shall be sent 15 days at least before the meeting date. This means that the conditions to hold an extraordinary meeting for the general assembly are summed up as follows:

To be called according to the demand of one third of its members, two thirds of the General Council members or two regional conferences,
EDLCs General Councils decides to convene the general assembly in an extraordinary meeting and according to this decision the executive body takes the necessary procedures for the invitation and the meeting and distributes the agenda and the necessary documents  for discussion 15 days at least before the meeting date.

The above conditions are not satisfied in the anonymous invitation which was sent to some bodies in the name of EDLCs members without any reference to these members, their numbers or their positions or any related information. Accordingly, the General Council of EDLC sent two memorandums to the Ministry of Manpower on Tuesday and Thursday (18 and 20 February 2014) and warned against giving legitimacy to an illusive meeting which does not meet the preconditions for holding the general assembly meeting. 

But the Ministry of Manpower disregarded the above mentioned conditions and delegated one of is employees to attend the meeting on 21/2/2014 to follow up its proceedings.

For the surprise of everybody, the then Minister of Manpower Mr. Kamal Abu Eita came to the Ministry in the weekend (Saturday 22/2/2014) and called Mrs. Hanim on her official holiday to delegate her to attend that meeting. He asked her to give him personally her report on that meeting (disregarding the rules and competence of the Ministrys employees because according to the rules she should submit the report to the Ministrys Department of Trade Union Liaison). 

The report prepared by the Ministrys delegate and the minutes of the signatures attached with it confirm that the quorum for the general assemblys meeting was not reached even if it was supposed that the invitation itself was valid. As if the former Minister of Manpower was sure that we will not get informed with the minutes of the meeting which was held on a holiday, the representative of the Ministry attached a list of 54 participants and said that this number included all of the attendees. In her report she said that she could not review the names or positions of the signatories and could not match the names with the names of the general assembly members according to the documents deposited with the Ministry of Manpower.

Having revised the said list we have found out the following:

The valid credentials of the trade union representatives attending the general assembly of EDLC  according to the deposited documents – are 25, namely:

The representative of the Trade Union of Al Azhar workers in Qena.
The representative of the Trade Union of HU Gas Co. Workers in Qena.
The representative of the Trade Union of Kaft Education Workers.
The representative of the Trade Union of the First Aid Authority in Luxor.
The representative of the Teachers Trade Union in Luxor.
The representative of the Teachers Trade Union in Deshna.
The representative of the Trade Union of Alexandria Container Handling Co.
The representative of the Trade Union of Beheera Industrial Constructions.
The representative of the Trade Union of Alexandria National Institute.
The representative of the Trade Union of Alexandria Workers University.
The representative of the Trade Union of Alexandria Ports Authority.
The representative of the Trade Union of Faragalla Company in Alexandria.
The representative of the Independent Trade Union of Alexandria Teachers.
The representative of the Trade Union of Alexandria Misr Al Ameriya for Spinning and Weaving Company.       (By Valid Proxy)
The representative of the Trade Union of Gas Network.     (By Valid Proxy)
The representative of the Trade Union of the Ministry of Supplies in Cairo.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Wholesale Trade Company.
 The representative of the Trade Union of Al Qahira Real Estate Brokerage Co.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Ministry of Social Affairs’ Premises in Cairo.
The representative of the Trade Union of the National Authority for Social Insurance in Ismailia.   (The Public and The Private Sectors’ Fund)
The representative of the Trade Union of the Construction Crafts in Ismailia.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Suez Canal Clubs.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Mini Bus Stations in Minia.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Public Transport Workers in Northern Cairo.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Public Transport Workshops Workers.

Attendees with proxies not duly signed or stamped by the trade unions were:
Representative of the Health Administrators Trade Union in Qous.
Representative of the Trade Union of the Workers of the Mediterranean Co. in Alexandria. 
Representative of the Trade Union of the Workers of the National Insurance Workers in Ismailia (the Government Workers Fund).
Representative of the Trade Union of Kafr el Dawar Mabarra Hospital.
Representative of the Trade Union of the Railway Workers in Luxor.
Representative of the Independent Trade Union of Dressmakers in Alexandria. 

Signatures were made for persons who did not attend and were supposed to have authorized some attendees to represent them:
Representative of the Trade Union of the Sailing Boats in the Red Sea.
Representative of the Trade Union of Literacy Classrooms in Qena.
Representative of the Trade Union of Teachers in Qena.
Representative of the Trade Union of Al Sukkary Mine Workers.

The list of signatures contained persons with more than one signature from the same trade union:
Three members from the Quarries Trade Union of Minia in addition to one more member for the general assembly of EDLC. They attended without obtaining authorization from their unions.
Three members from the Trade Union of Alexandria Container Handling Co. (in addition to the representative mentioned hereinabove).
One member from the Trade Union of Al Qahira Real Estate Brokerage Co. (in addition to the representative mentioned hereinabove).
One member from the Teachers Independent Trade Union of Alexandria (in addition to the representative mentioned hereinabove).
Two members from the Independent Trade Union of Al Muntazah Teachers, in addition to one more member for the general assembly of EDLC. They attended without obtaining authorization from their unions.
Three members from the Trade Union of Public Transport. (Two of them are not entitled to attend, and the third attended as observer).
The list included the signatures of Medhat Helmy Sayed Ahmed (Building and Wood Trade Union), Sameh Salah Shaker (from Qena), Saeed Mohamed Elsayed Mohamed (Building and Wood Trade Union), Ahmed Badry Mohamed (?). They do not represent trade unions which constitute members of the general assembly. 
Sayed Mahmoud Mohamed signed but he is not an elected member and he does not represent Regina Trade Union of el Sadat City.
The representative of the Trade Union of the Construction Crafts in Ismailia signed twice: once under No. 12 and again under number 36.

This shows that representatives of only 25 (from the 172) member trade unions have attended the general assembly with valid credentials. In best cases, they may be 31 unions if the invalid proxies are counted.

As Article 11 of the statutes provide that the general assembly meeting shall be valid if attended by more than one half of the entitled members. If the quorum is not reached the meeting shall be postponed for 2 hours after which the meeting shall be valid with the presence of one third of the members. But the percentage of attendees - according to the report prepared by the delegate of the Ministry of Manpower and to the list of attendance attached with it  does not exceed 15% of the members or 20% if the attendees with invalid credentials are counted.

In spite of all this, the former Minister of Manpower and one of his employees issued the aforementioned letter to Misr Banque on Sunday 23/2/2014 without informing the General Council of EDLC. In other words, the letter was issued secretly and was not announced for more than 15 days.

It seems that experts from the Ministry of Manpower advised Mr. Yusry Marouf to complete the quorum during the successive days. How? We do not know. What happened is that Mr. Yusry Marouf kept contacting a number of colleague trade unionists and begging them to sign for him. Is this a new method for counting the quorum for a general assembly, or is it the old method which says: the books are our books and the stamp is our stamp!!

Anyway, and regardless of the Ministry and its experts EDLC is committed only to its statutes and the will of its members. EDLC will hold its regular general assembly according to democratic foundations and rules of its constitution. 

The EDLC - which is committed with the core labour standards, the principles of trade union freedoms and democracy and is completely biased to the Egyptian workers right to form their trade unions freely independent from the state, businessmen and political parties, and to the struggle for gaining this right completely, to remove all the legal barriers which was imposed on them during the previous decades and to remove all the administrative obstacles which hinder exercising this right  cannot afford to waiver any of these principles and criteria EDLC cannot accept now what the Egyptian workers and their democratic trade union movement have refused three years ago.

The Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress EDLC
Sunday 16/3/2014