The government practices confirm that " No voice could drown out the voice of the General Federation of Labour Unions”
“Adel Zakaria” – A member of the journalists’ network of Arab trade unions
Egypt- Despite the promulgation of a new labour union law (213 of 2018), which contained ‘utopian’ prohibitive conditions to reconcile the situations of trade unions, there is an explicit opposition to the experience of independent trade unions in Egypt. Although, the issuance of the implementing regulations of the law, many people bet that some regulations would address some of the law problems. In fact, it has rather worsen the situation and added more obstacles on the reconciliation of the situations of the independent trade unions, according to the provisions of the new law. The implementing regulations require a lot of demands and papers from the unions that want to reconcile and settle their situations. In fact, what is required of them is more than what is required of the newly founded unions. If only one sheet is missing, out of all the required papers, the employee of the Ministry of Manpower will immediately refuse to receive the rest of the unions’ papers. Probably, the most dangerous paper among all the papers is the one which contains all the information about the unions’ members. This paper is accredited by the work and the insurances, in addition to the fact that the requirement of obtaining the disclosure from the insurances deprives the non-insured workers from their membership in the union, during the reconciliation of the situation. Thus, for the administrations of the Ministry Manpower, which do not want the existence of unions that disturb them by asking for their workers’ rights, this condition is an opportunity to deprive workers from a union to defend them.
However, the independent trade unions decided to enter the fight to reconcile their situations, in line with the new law within 60 days from the date of the issuance of the implementing regulations. The deadline expired on May 14, 2018, with surprisingly new obstacles that hinder the process of reconciliation of the independent unions, which are even worse from the previous prohibited conditions. These new obstacles were in favour of the government trade unions, as the government paved the way for them to reconcile their situation without even complying with the provisions of the law and regulations. Out of the 1000 independent unions, only about 122 independent unions were able to reconcile their situation after a very hard work, battles and threats of strikes and hunger strikes.
The lawlessness state
“Tariq Kaib”, the head of the General Union of Real Estate Tax Workers said: “The General Union for Real Estate Taxation consists of 27 subcommittees, similar to the number of governorates in Egypt, with the membership of more than 42 thousand employees and workers. 25 unions prepared all the required papers according to the law and regulation. However, the directorates of the labour force violated the law and accepted fake papers for the government unions. While it refused even to receive our trade union papers in many Egyptian governorates. In addition, the directors of the Ministry of Labour Force deliberately put obstacles and demands that do not even exist in the law to
make the situation seem impossible for us. After severe pressure and suffering, we managed to reconcile the status of 14 trade union committees from 25 committees, as if there is a deliberate intention to prevent us from establishing a public union. In fact, according to the law, its establishment requires the consistence of 15 trade union committees, which means with at least 20 thousand members!!
The last resort was to issue minutes in the police departments in the provinces, where the acceptance of our papers was hindered against the director of the relevant bureau from the Ministry of Labour, accusing them of the violation of the provisions and implementing regulations of Law 213. In addition, we have handed over the trade union papers to the working force through the registry of the recorders in the Egyptian courts to preserve our legal right before the end of the period of reconciliation. The Ministry of Manpower itself refused to accept the papers of the General Union, although we sent them through the court!! So, we are living in a state of lawlessness..
The trade union coach and expert “Salah Al-Atzari” said: The independent trade unions agreed on the new trade unions law, its implementing regulations, the electoral schedule, and the conditions for the reconciliation, despite the fact that there are aberrations and observations as it is the only way to accept the papers and to officially recognize the union. In spite of all this came the stage of dealing with the employees in the different departments of the Ministry of Manpower, as every employee was behaving like a legislator, agreeing and preventing decisions according to his desires and temperament, which is not acceptable as it violates the law. In addition, many employers refrained from implementing the law by not stamping the papers of the General Union, whose purpose is to prove the working relationship. Among the other obstacles, there are: the refusal of the real estate registration and documentation offices to prove the date or documentation of the contracts of the trade union committees, the demand of some labour force employees of the trade unions to lease the premises of the trade union committees to the establishments, despite the exception of the law. Besides, to oblige the irregular trade union committees to seal the membership lists of social insurance, despite the exception of non-regular employment of this procedure, a despicable and boring bureaucracy that does not have any doubt that the whole issue was a formality, which means despite everything done by the government, it has just issued an unjust and extremist law. In fact, the government is represented by the Ministry of Manpower, it wants trade unions to cooperate with them, blindly following its policies and orders"
While “Cherif Al-Masri”, the head of the Independent Workers' Union at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, added: “Experience has affirmed that we live within a complete and unified system of corruption and injustice to disrupt the law and disrespect the workers' rights and will. Since the promulgation of the Trade Unions Law No. 213 of 2017 in December 2017 and its executive regulations issued on March 14, 2018, independent unions face all forms and practices of oppression, corruption and lack of respect for the law, starting from the institutions which belong to them, whether governmental or private or other ones. The officials of these institutions refuse to accept the papers of any independent trade union in violation of the law and in violation to the values of respecting work and colleagues. They do so with arrogance and haggard. They do not know, that with such bad behaviour towards the independent unions and with no respect for the law, they are actually harming these institutions. In fact, employees will hate them and disrespect them, which will lead to the creation of a bad working environment.
As for the experience of depositing the papers of the Alexandria Workers Syndicate, “Al-Masri” added: "Over the course of more than a month and countless hardships, the Directorate of Manpower refused to receive the papers. When all of their arguments were over, we were able to
obtain an official letter from the Directorate of Manpower, in which they acknowledge the reasons for their rejection.
It consists on not accepting any papers of an independent union, as long as the union has another union affiliated with it apart from the government union "
Examples of fake and field follow-up
As part of the follow-up of the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services for the reconciliation ,it states in its report that “Ali Abdelhamid Ali Al-Rahabi”, the chairman of the Syndicate Committee for Technicians and Day Workers in Sohag city , founded on July 6, 2014, that when he was applying for the reconciliation for his trade union committee to the directorate of Manpower in the governorate, in order to reconcile its situation, in accordance with the provisions of the new trade unions law, he was surprised by an official of the directorate, telling him that he has instructions not to reconcile the independent trade unions and to reconcile only the situations of the General Union of Egyptian Workers' Union(government) .
The directorate of the administrative affairs of the subway also refused to approve the disclosure of the General Assembly of the Independent Trade Union Committee for the workers of the subway, and even its current Chairman, Mr. “Yasser Dagher”, was threatened to be transfer to the railway to join its former president “Rafat Arafat”, its secretary-general “Mohammad Al-Demerdach” and its vice-president, “Yahya Jalal”. Despite the adoption of this administration, to reveal the committee No. 9 of the General Union of Railways, which is a flagrant violation of the law of trade union organizations No. 213 of 2017 and its executive regulations, it is known that the Director General of the Department of Administrative Affairs in the subway is also a member of the Board of Directors of the committee, the president of the independent union was surprised to include his name in the lists of the general assembly of the government union.
As for the independent trade unions in the oil sector, their situation is even worse, especially since the current Minister of Manpower, before assuming the duties of the ministry, he was the previous president of the General Union of Petroleum Workers of the state. In fact, the independent trade unions established in the oil sector were like a thorn in his throat. Through their struggle, he has been unmasked by these independent unions, which were able to improve the workers’ conditions of these companies. Thus, the arbitrariness of the administrations of these companies by the leaders of these unions, and the attempt to get rid of them was not strange. In fact, “Yasser Chikh” from the Egyptian Gas Syndicate was arrested during one of the strikes. After leaving the prison, he was arbitrarily dismissed. Many independent trade unionists were transferred to other companies, including “Yasser”, the head of the Sayanco Syndicate and “Hind Hilal” were also transferred from the Petro-Trade syndicate, following “Hind’s” call to form a meeting to settle the issue of the union's independent status….
About the attempt to hinder the establishment of the independent trade unions in the oil sector, "Islam" a member in one of these unions said that that he went after the issuance of the regulations directly to the headquarters of the Ministry of Manpower, and when he asked the employee responsible for the receipt of papers on the procedures of reconciliation, he replied: " the list is not ready yet”. Fortunately, “Islam” had a copy of the regulations with him, when he presented it to him, the employee said: "We didn’t receive any order to receive the papers." When Islam turned to the manager of this employee, he was surprised by the employee’s warning to the manager, " Sir this man belongs to an independent syndicate.” The manager told “Islam” that there was a ruling against the independent syndicates because they are illegal. He showed him a letter from the Council of
Ministers, which has been issued for more than two years ago. In addition to the refusal of the company's management to approve the disclosure of the union’s membership. When the officials of the union went to the insurance to approve the disclosure, they were told that they are not the concerned party, and that they must first confirm the disclosure from the company, and then go to the insurance office of the company to adopt it.
The bias towards the government union
“Kamal Abbas”, the general coordinator of the Center for Trade Union & Workers Services, commented: “The unions were misunderstood by the workers of the labour force departments, which resulted in unjustified demands that were not provided in the law or in its executive regulations. All the committees that completed the reconciliation process have gone through a long struggle and tension between the union committees and the labour force workers”. He also stressed the existence of "verbal" instructions to obstruct the situation, as it was the case with the trade union committee of land transport workers in “Benha”, which received back its papers that had already met their conditions and which he had submitted to the directorate after an intervention by “Jibali El Maraghi”, the head of the General Union of the Egyptian Workers' Unions (government), who is also the head of the General Union of the (Pro-government) Land Transport. The experience of reconciliation proved the non-seriousness of the government in respecting its international commitments, and its continuing violation of the Constitution and international conventions signed by the Egyptian government. Without the blatant interference of government and security agencies, no committee or union of the pro- government unions could reconcile their positions .These unions, which stamp the lists of the general assembly’s’ full of names of pensioners and deceased who submitted their resignations from these committees, and the departments of companies who reconciled their positions in the directorates without trouble, they will not remain unions, whereas, the ones which were built with effort and struggle will remain. The era of government unions is over.
“Saad Chaaban”, the head of the Egypt's Democratic Union of Workers, said that the union includes 132 union committees, but only 27 unions whose situations improved. “Chaaban” added that there are many obstacles faced by the independent unions such as the insurance papers, pointing out that the directorates of the labour force are tyrant and set up terrible obstacles that were not stipulated by the law in order to hinder the reconcile of the independent trade unions. The independent trade unions were arbitrarily forced to join the government union in exchange for allowing them to reconcile their situations, which happened in many unions.
“Rahma Rifaat”, a lawyer and coordinator of the programs at the Center for Trade Union & Workers Services, added that the independent unions encountered obstacles that had nothing to do with the law or regulations. They were met with unreasonable demands by the labour force directorates and many complained of their oppression and arrogance. The instructions issued by the Ministry of Manpower to its directorates forbade the directorates to reconcile the status of any trade union committee independent of the General Union of the Egyptian Workers' Syndicates (government), and which has another committee affiliated to it. In this case, the directorate shall send the case of the trade union committee to the Ministry for examination. Where the Ministry tends to exclude the reconciliation of the status of these trade union committees under any pretexts, or lawsuits that are unrelated to the law. This was in tandem with oral statements by some members of the Higher Ministerial Committee to reconcile the situation, and many trade union communication workers in the directorates and their managers, believe that there is no need to have more than one union committee in one location.
“Another issue” (said by “Rahma Rifaat”) that what was presented by the union committees of the government union in the submission of membership lists extracted by the departments of enterprises, including the compulsory membership, that were apportioned and their contributions were automatically deducted once you join the work – as everyone knows – These lists contain the names of union members in independent trade unions from the parallel federation of the committees.
In this case, the Ministry of Manpower finds a ready justification for halting the reconciliation on the alleged existence of double membership. The independent unions, must prove then their belonging to them and provide evidence of their withdrawal from other unions, although they have never joined these unions.
The completion of the battle in the courts
“Mohamed Abu Jricha”, the chairman of the Independent Workers' Union of the Egyptian Telecommunication Company, whose membership extends in 18 Egyptian governorates said: “The union began its attempts to reconcile its situation about a month ago. However, it faced a series of unjustified intransigence and procrastination. As the deadline for the reconciliation process approaches, the union exhausts its entire possible means, providing the sufficient documents and responding to all the logical and illogical claims. The administrative side has no longer an argument for the non-reconciliation of their situation. However, they still refuse the reconciliation with no reason. The Manpower Directorate – the competent administrative authority in accordance with the law and the regulation – has no more than a statement that it has no reasons or demands to reject our organization and that it doing it without a clear statement from its ministry. In the ministry of Manpower no one answered our question: Why cannot we reconciliate our union according to Law No. 213 of 2017 and its executive regulations? Then, we were in front of an unlawful attempt by some parties of the Ministry of Manpower to put pressure on us and get us to join the general union of the General Government Union of Trade Unions of Egypt. We were told that the only way to reconcile our situation is to join the union and the organization, from which our independent union was founded, seven years ago because we were dissatisfied with the non-democratic foundations on which it was based, and its practices that waste the rights of workers.
We were told (according to “Abu Jricha”) that we can join now and then withdraw after the elections. Why then? Are we in a play or a silent game? How can we withdraw after losing our credibility? And who among us can ensure that the administrative bodies that we bargained to join this organization in exchange for the reconciling our situation will not put obstacles in front of our withdrawal? How can we trust these biased directorates? Before the end of the deadline, we have handed over the papers of the union through the road and we will continue to claim our right in the Egyptian courts, and we will get our right by judicial decision.
On Sunday, 13/5/2018, a number of union leaders filed suit No. 41025 for judicial year 72 to the administrative court of the second Ccrcuit. The plaintiffs demanded the cancellation of the decision of the Minister of Manpower contested against him No. 35 of 2018 to issue the executive regulation of the Trade Union Organizations Law No. 213 of 2017, and as a matter of urgency the contested decision was stopped. In addition, some unions have filed another lawsuit in February 2018 to challenge the unconstitutionality of Law 213 of 2017.
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