Egypt – Saad Shaaban, head of Egypts Democratic Workers Union, said that the International Labour Organization (ILO) Standards Committee recommended the Egyptian government to allow all unions to operate freely.
Shaaban, who participated in the 106th session of the International Labour Conference, said that the organization will form a committee of the International Labour Office to follow the steps taken by Egypt in this regard, which will continue until next November, and to submit a report at the next session of the International Labour Conference. According to videos posted by Susanna Miller, a member of the International Labour Conference, on her facebook page, MP Mohammed Wahaballah, the head of the official labour delegation, withdrew from the hall to protest against these recommendations. Susana said the representative of the Egyptian government and the official labour union withdrew from the plenary session to express their outrage after the International Labour Organizations Standards Committee made their conclusions. On Wednesday, the (ILO) Standards Committee held a special meeting about Egypt after it listed Egypt among the countries that violate the rights of workers known in media as blacklisted. During the meeting, the committee listened to Minister of Manpower Mohammed Saafan, who accused the organization of lack of transparency. The committee also listened to MP Mohamed Wahballah, who criticized the blacklist saying that Egypt was listed without justification. At the same meeting, the Committee listened to Rahma Rifat, representative of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services, which presented violations against trade unionists and workers because of their trade union work or their quest to secure a source of income. .The meeting witnessed interventions from internaional unions such as the International Transport Union and the Italian and German unions, accusing Egypt of violating the rights of workers. Egypt is back on the blacklist of the UN-affiliated International Labor Organization (ILO) over the nation’s failure to issue a new trade union law in keeping with ILO Convention 87 concerning the right to organize. Egyptian authorities were warned about the blacklist when an ILO delegation visited Cairo in May and issued a statement regarding a 2011 draft law on trade liberties that protects the rights of independent unions away from the monopoly of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), and has not been passed into law. . The delegation gave the Government a week to amend these observations in accordance with the independent trade unions, after which the Government held three meetings with some representatives of independent trade unions to approve the draft law.
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