Egypt – The administration of the American University in Cairo ended a strike of cleaning workers, which lasted more than 11 days, for dismissing 170 workers from the cleaning department at the university. The workers protested the universitys decision to dismiss them after serving for more than 10 years at the university. The worker explained that the decision was the result of a deputys view that they are not doing their job seriously, pointing out that they offered her to give them a one-year period. If their performance does not improve during this year then they can dismiss them. But she rejected that offer and assured them that they already signed a new contract with new cleaning company, and they will dismiss workers and supervisors in 31 August. The university administration did not move in end the crisis, instead they issued a written decision to cancel the cleaning department and the dismiss all workers without notification or negotiation between the workers representatives of the Independent Workers Union of the American University in Cairo. In the last two days a committee from the Ministry of Manpower met with the representatives of the workers, the universitys legal advisor and the director of human resources at the American University. The Committee condemned the decision not to renew contracts because the legal procedure requires that workers be notified two months before the end of their contracts for those who have not worked for ten years and three months for those who have completed ten years of work. The committee also stressed that the university does not have an internal regulation defining the rights and duties of workers and that these observations represent a clear and explicit violation of the provisions and articles of the Egyptian labour law.
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