Public sector workers protest civil service law, plan more protests in August

Hundreds of Central Agency for Organization and Management employees protested in front of their workplace in Cairo on Monday demanding the repeal of the new civil service law.

Along with other disgruntled public sector workers nationwide, the protesters claimed that the law violates labor rights on several different levels. They called for further demonstrations on August 10 and 17.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ratified the law on March 12, 2015, immediately precipitating a groundswell of discontent — but protests have been on the rise again recently as workers are just now starting to feel the legislation’s impact on their daily lives.

“This law was issued without any real consultation with workers or their unions,” Tarek Mostafa — the president of the independent General Union for Real Estate Tax Authority Employees — told Mada Masr. “It is thus deeply flawed, and violates the rights of public sector employees in many different ways.”

“We were largely kept in the dark while they [the Cabinet] drafted and issued their own law,” Mostafa continued, adding that “the authorities did not allow for our opinions, concerns or reservations to be incorporated into the text of this law.”

Even the leaders of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) were kept in the dark when the bill was being drafted, according to the privately owned daily Al-Watan. ETUF Secretary General Mohamed Wahballah is quoted as saying that the new law is therefore “illegitimate and illegal.”

The law includes articles that decrease health insurance and pensions for public sector employees, as well as bonuses — thus serving to diminish basic wages, Wahballah continued.

Mostafa agreed, saying that one of his chief problems with the law was the slashing of bonuses.

Before Sisi passed the bill, Real Estate Tax Authority employees received an average of LE400-500 per month in bonuses, Mostafa explained. But now that figure has dropped to just LE80 a month, he claimed.

“The state has issued a law that actually cuts our total wages by minimizing our bonuses and compensations, at a time of growing inflation, price hikes and subsidy cuts,” Mostafa argued.

“Several civil service employees are planning to embark on protest actions on August 10,” he continued. “Employees of the Real Estate Tax Authority, and other tax collectors, will follow up with protests of our own on August 17. If there is no response from the authorities, then we will consider escalating our protests until this unjust law is repealed, or at least amended.”

Others, including the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions and the Egyptian Democratic Labor Confederation, echo this frustration, claiming the law restricts opportunities for promotions, pay raises and professional advancement.

These independent unions have also criticized an article that drastically reduces compensation for working on official holidays.

And while the law stipulates a 35-hour-minimum work week for the public sector, it doesn’t set a cap on the maximum hours that may be worked, nor does it include provisions for overtime compensation, ETUF official Miaysa Attwah told Al-Watan.

Furthermore, Mostafa worries that the law “opens the door to corruption in the civil service, as managers are granted additional powers allowing them to more easily fire public sector employees who report on corruption or the mismanagement of public funds.”

There was at least one small bright note, however: “Despite our myriad reservations regarding this law, there is one provision which has been amended for the better,” Mostafa said. “This provision extends women’s maternity leave from three months to four months.”

“Nevertheless, we will continue to demand our rights in full,” he concluded, “and we will not settle for the many labor violations included in this law.”