Helwan University administration seeks to downgrade contracts of over 300 employees

The administration at Helwan University is seeking to transfer over 300 of its employees from renewable, short-term contracts to new contracts this month, which would strip them of their existing employment rights.

The workers, who have been employed by the state university in Cairo under automatically renewable annual contracts for years, have been anticipating that the university would grant them permanent contracts as mandated by law. The permanent contracts would entitle them to promotions and raises based on seniority and rank.  

Instead, the new contracts offered to them would reclassify them as daily wage laborers. While they receive fixed wages, social insurance and other benefits under their existing agreements, the contracts the administration is attempting to impose on them would leave them without any of these protections. 

The workers, who say they were not informed of the change at all, are taking action to reject the move and demanding permanent contracts, arguing that having worked for over a decade they are legally entitled to tenure, or at least continued renewal of their short-term contracts, according to several workers who spoke to Mada Masr.

Workers received a written notice from the university’s human resources department in March instructing them to visit the administration office to "sign the contracts in preparation for renewal starting from July 1." 

Temporary contracts are always renewed automatically on July 1 each year, said one worker, who has been employed in the university’s auxiliary services for 13 years. Around 50 workers signed the new contracts without carefully reviewing them, assuming they were part of the tenure process — especially since the administration had requested their hiring documents again, several workers told Mada Masr. 

Upon reading the terms, however, some realized that the contracts were different from those they had signed in previous years. 

The auxiliary service worker was one of the 300 who refused to sign. They told Mada Masr that after so many years of service, they should have been granted tenure. 

One worker, a janitor at the university for 13 years, was among those who unknowingly signed the new contract, believing it was a tenure agreement.

The university’s administration required the janitor to submit specific documents for the new contract. To cover the costs of obtaining these documents, they had to borrow money, as they only earn LE4,700 per month. "At first, we were happy, thinking we were finally getting tenure. We got the paperwork done, only to realize I was borrowing money to get myself fired," they said. 

When the administration refused to provide the worker with a copy of their new contract, they filed a report at Helwan Police Station, accusing the university of fraud.

Workers say they faced intense pressure and threats of dismissal from the administration, especially after seeking help from a member of parliament. The MP instructed them to record a "video appeal" outlining their demands, which was then sent to the university head.

On March 11, MP Samira al-Gazzar submitted an inquiry to the prime minister and the labor minister regarding the university threatening its workers to force them into signing the new contracts, as well as the employees who signed the new contracts unknowingly. She argued that the university’s actions infringe on workers' rights and contradict “its own staffing needs, particularly given the high number of employees retiring.” The auxiliary worker who spoke to Mada Masr mentioned that they had worked in several positions at the university, given major staffing shortages.

Mada Masr reached out to Helwan University’s administration for comment, but the university president’s office director Tarek Ali declined to respond, saying that only the university’s secretary-general Major General Mohamed Abu Shoqqa was authorized to speak on the matter. When contacted, Abu Shoqqa refused to comment over the phone.

Lawyer Haitham Mohamadein told Mada Masr that Law 19/2012, which amended civil service regulations, mandates that all short-term state employees must be granted permanent contracts after three years of service — a requirement upheld under the Civil Service Law 81/2016. Helwan University’s short-term employees are therefore entitled to tenure under Article 187 of the Civil Service Law and its executive regulations, he said.