INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF FREE TRADE UNIONS (ICFTU) INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNISED CORE LABOUR STANDARDS IN EGYPT REPORT FOR THE WTO GENERAL COUNCIL REVIEW OF THE TRADE POLICIES OF EGYPT (Geneva, 26 and 28 July 2005) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Egypt has ratified all the eight ILO core labour standards. However, in every area Egypt s law and practice require further measures in order to comply with the commitments Egypt accepted at Singapore, Geneva and Doha in the WTO Ministerial Declarations over 1996-2001, and in the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted in June 1998. Although Egypt has ratified both the core ILO conventions protecting trade union rights, there are serious violations of trade union rights. The government keeps close control over the unions, by obliging all trade unions to affiliate to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), with which it has a close relationship. There are legal restrictions on collective bargaining throughout the economy, rendering it extremely difficult in the private sector and almost nonexistent in the public sector. Unions ability to strike legally is virtually nonexistent. Security forces have often used violence to bring an end to industrial disputes. While Egypt has ratified both the fundamental ILO Conventions on discrimination, there are various weaknesses in the provisions of the law concerning protection against discrimination in employment. Women are generally confined to employment in poorly-remunerated occupations. Egypt has recently ratified the ILO core standards on child labour. However child labour is extensively employed in both the rural and the urban sectors. Recent legislative improvements have not been adequately enforced and consequently the situation continues to provide serious cause for concern. Egypt has ratified both the core conventions on forced labour, but forced labour can be used in Egypt as a penalty for striking in the public sector or by seafarers and against political opponents. The use of forced labour by employers is not adequately penalised under the law.
2 INTERNATIONALLY-RECOGNISED CORE LABOUR STANDARDS IN EGYPT Introduction This report on the respect of internationally recognised core labour standards in Egypt is one of the series the ICFTU is producing in accordance with the Ministerial Declaration adopted at the first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) (Singapore, 9-13 December 1996) and endorsed at the second WTO Ministerial Conference (Geneva, 18-20 May 1998) in which the Ministers stated: We renew our commitment to the observance of internationally recognised core labour standards. The fourth Ministerial Conference (Doha, 9-14 November 2001) reaffirmed this commitment. These standards were further upheld in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work adopted by the 174 member countries of the ILO at the International Labour Conference in June 1998. There is only one trade union centre in Egypt, the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), which has some 3.5 million members. Egypt has the largest population in the Arab world and after Saudi Arabia is the second largest Arab economy. The economy is dominated by services, which including public administration account for about one-half of GDP. Tourism and the Suez Canal are important service sectors. Agriculture s contribution to GDP is gradually diminishing, but it is still an important activity, accounting for 16.1% of GDP in 2003, representing about 28% of total employment. Industry accounted for 34% of GDP in 2003, and for nearly 14% of total employment. There is a large amount of informal and unprotected employment, which the minister of finance has estimated to account for some 30% of total economic activity. Merchandise exports stood at US$ 9 billion in 2003, of which oil accounted for 37.5% and manufactured goods for 38%, of which cotton, textiles and garments made up 6%. The main export markets are the US (35.4% of all Egyptian exports in 2003) and the EU (32.8%). Exports to Arab countries account for about 12.2% of total exports. Imports stood at about US$ 15 billion in 2002. Intermediate goods represent almost 30% of all imports, while investment goods account for about 20% and consumers goods for 16% of total imports. The EU is the main source of imports (32% of imports in 2003) followed by the US (24%). Imports from Arab countries accounted for 7% in 2003. Egypt is part of the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA) involving 17 Arab states and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). Egypt signed an association agreement with
3 the EU in June 2001, the trade provisions of which entered into force in 2004. In December 2004 Egypt and Israel concluded an agreement on a partial free trade deal, the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) agreement which provides tariff free access to the US market for certain goods produced with Israeli inputs in Egyptian QIZs. The purpose was in large part to provide Egyptian producers with a price advantage to compensate for the increased competition with China expected to result from the end of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) on 31 December 2004. According to the Egyptian Centre for Economic Studies, quoted by the BBC, Egypt stands to be unable to match China s low production costs and low prices, and hence would be squeezed out of the global market, unless assisted by measures such as the QIZ agreement. I. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining Egypt ratified ILO Convention No. 87 (1948), the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, in 1957 and ILO Convention No. 98 (1949), the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, in 1954. Most workers in Egypt have the right, in theory, to form and join trade unions, provided at least 50 workers in an enterprise request the right to organise. Such a limitation can hinder the establishment of a union in smaller enterprises and is therefore a restriction of the right to organise. Moreover, the law deprives workers of freedom of association in any meaningful sense, since all the 23 trade unions in Egypt are required to belong to the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), the sole legally recognised trade union centre. ETUF officials have close relations with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). The ETUF controls the nomination and election procedures for trade union office. Furthermore, the law stipulates that federations are obliged to pay the national centre a certain percentage of their income, which constitutes illegitimate intervention in union financial activities. The ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has repeatedly emphasised that a law requiring all trade unions to belong to a single federation infringes on freedom of association. The government has consistently failed to respond to these criticisms in any satisfactory way. The recently introduced new labour law (Law 12 of 2003) calls for the establishment of a tripartite Labour Consultative Council to address labour related issues. However in practice, this Council has not yet met. Although the new legislation provides for collective bargaining, there is very little room for manoeuvre in negotiations in the private sector. Companies must comply with government established standards, including on wage issues.
4 Law 12 of 2003 requires all collective agreements to be registered with the competent administrative authority, which can refuse such a registration by stating reasons. The Labour Code fails to enumerate these specific reasons. This has led the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations to recommend legal changes to the Egyptian Government in 2004. Further, the Labour Law of 2003 includes a new section under which any clause of collective agreements contrary to the law on public order or general ethics shall be null and void. The ILO Committee of Experts has asked for a definition of general ethics in order to examine whether such a requirement is compatible with the principle of voluntary negotiation contained in the Convention. As of this date, the government had not given any response to the above- mentioned ILO queries. In the public sector, the government sets wages and other terms and conditions of employment. Collective bargaining is not allowed in this sector. The 2003 Labour Law provides for a limited right to strike. Peaceful strikes are allowed after protracted negotiations and unions have to give at least 10 days notice. Strikes are prohibited by law during the validity of collective agreements and during both the mediation and arbitration processes. Law 12 requires strikes to be approved by two thirds of the board members of the concerned general trade union. The ETUF must approve the organisation of a strike to make it legal, which creates a further serious obstacle in the way of undertaking legitimate strike action. This provision regarding the ETUF has been criticised strongly by the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations. Strikes are prohibited in the strategic or vital establishments where interrupting the work therein will result in disturbing national security or the basic services provided by them to the citizens. It is up to the Prime Minister to define these establishments by means of a decree. In 2004 the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations required the Egyptian Government to make sure that those strategic or vital establishments, in which striking is prohibited, are strictly limited to establishments providing essential services in the strict sense of the term, namely services the interruption of which would endanger the life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population, or in cases of acute national crisis. Furthermore, the Committee required the government to amend the 2003 Labour Law in order to guarantee that compulsory arbitration imposed by one party will suspend the right to strike only for those particular establishments providing essential services.
5 The Committee asked the Government to amend the current legislation which provides for the dissolution of the Executive Committee of a trade union that has provoked work stoppage of absenteeism in a public service. While labour law and practice are the same in the six existing export processing zones (EPZs) as in the rest of the country, a Special Economic Zones (SEZ) law was issued in 2002 stating that rules governing labour in the SEZs can be more flexible, since the authority regulating the SEZ can modify contracts according to business needs, provided that the general requirements of the labour law are respected. There was considerable industrial conflict in 2004, despite the severe restrictions on independent trade unions or strikes. These activities were often vigorously repressed: In March 2004, a thousand troops prevented an engineers protest about restrictions on union organising. In October 2004 the police besieged the Abou Tartour Phosphate Mines and threatened to turn off the mine s ventilation fans in an effort to force striking miners to go back to work. Employers at the Ora-Egypt Asbestos Works withheld salaries from 25 workers who held a five day strike on May 6 because of non payment of their April salaries and bad workplace health conditions. Conclusions There are serious violations of trade union rights in Egypt. There are legal restrictions on collective bargaining throughout the economy, rendering it extremely difficult in the private sector and effectively nonexistent in the public sector. The right to strike is prohibited in certain establishments which are defined by the Prime Minister only. For those cases where the right to strike is recognized, the conditions attached to it are in practice so difficult to fulfil that strikes not infringing the current labour law are virtually impossible. Where strikes do take place, they are frequently repressed vigorously and often with violence. II. Discrimination and Equal Remuneration In 1960, Egypt ratified ILO Convention No. 100 (1951), Equal Remuneration and ILO Convention No. 111 (1958), Discrimination (Employment and Occupation). The female economic activity rate in Egypt is 40% of that of men and women constitute between 25 and 30% of the labour force. In 2002, the official unemployment rate reached 13% of the active population, and
6 23% for the female labour force. The illiteracy rate among women stands at 56% with strong regional disparities between Upper and Lower Egypt. The illiteracy rate of males is estimated at 33%. Women work primarily on farms or in informal employment where remunerations are the lowest and the level of protection the poorest. However women's participation in formal economic activity is gradually increasing and has reached over 70 per cent in certain branches of the food, ready-to-wear apparel and pharmaceuticals industries. The 2004 UN Development Report on Egypt underlined that women were among the most vulnerable groups affected by the downsizing of the civil service which took place during the period covered. The law guarantees men and women equal rates of pay for the same work, not for work of equal value, as required under ILO Convention No. 100. According to ILO figures female workers receive, on average, only 83% of a male wage. While government and public sector employment contributed to the narrowing of the wage gap (about 93% in that sector), the underpayment of females is conspicuous in the private sector where, on average, a female is being paid slightly over two-thirds of a male s wage. In this respect the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has emphasised that the government needs to undertake measures to ensure that the principle of equal remuneration is monitored in practice (through visits, labour inspectorate studies or surveys) and to ensure access to means of redress in the event of non-compliance with the law. The 2003 Labour Law contains a specific chapter on women workers according to which all provisions regulating employment of workers shall apply to women workers without discrimination. However this Law does not apply to house servants, most of them being women. Further, female workers engaged in agricultural labour are explicitly excluded from the application of the provisions contained in the Chapter on women workers. A ministerial decree regulates the works that are unwholesome and morally harmful to women as well as the works in which women may not be employed to work (Art. 90 of Law 12 of 2003). In 2004 the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations asked the Government to provide information on the content and the status of this new decree. Order 22 dealing with harmful work for women under the previous 1981 Labour Code was considered infringing on the principle of equal opportunity in respect to access to employment. Social pressure against women pursuing a career is strong. The ILO Committee of Experts has criticised the extremely low level of representation of women in responsible positions of the civil service, although it has recently noted some progress in this regard. In 2005 the World Economic Forum published a study assessing the
7 size of the gender gap by measuring the extent to which women have achieved equality with men in five critical areas, namely economic participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment, and health and well-being. The study, covering 58 countries, put Egypt in the lowest place. There are reports of discrimination in employment against Egypt s 6 million Coptic Christians, including in the police, the armed forces, universities and other government agencies. There are no Coptic governors, police commissioners, city mayors, university presidents or deans. There are very few Christians in the upper ranks of the military or police. Discrimination against Christians is reported to continue in public sector employment, in staff appointment to public universities and in failure to admit Christians into public university training programmes for Arabic language teachers. There are approximately 5.7 million disabled persons, of whom 1.5 million are severely disabled. The government has set up job-training programmes for the disabled and has passed legislation stipulating that all businesses must designate 5 percent of their jobs for the disabled. There is a lack of information on the level of compliance with the law. Conclusions There are various weaknesses in the provisions of the law of Egypt concerning protection against discrimination in employment. Women are employed disproportionately in poorly-remunerated occupations. III. Child Labour Egypt ratified ILO Convention No. 138 (1973), the Minimum Age Convention in 1999 and Convention No 182 (1999), the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention in 2002. The 2003 Labour Law prohibits employing female and male children not reaching the age of complete elementary education or the age of 14, whichever is older. However children may be trained (art. 99 of Labour Law 12 of 2003) once they reach the age of 12. This law does not apply to children working in the agricultural sector. Provincial Governors with the approval of the Ministry of Education may authorize seasonal work for children between 12 and 14, provided that duties are not hazardous and do not interfere with schooling. In April 2001, the government issued a decree making it illegal to employ children below the age of 14 in cotton fields. However the degree of implementation is unclear. In January 2001 Human Rights Watch reported that more than one million children below the age of 12 were working in harsh and even dangerous conditions in cotton fields,
8 sometimes as much as 11 hours a day, seven days a week. Some of them reported facing routine beatings by their foremen, as well as exposure to heat and pesticides. The 2003 Labour Law stipulates that a child (aged 14 to 18) may not work more than 6 hours a day, during which at least one hour-long break has to be granted. Children are not allowed to work overtime hours or to work on weekly days of rest and official holidays. According to international statistics covering the period 1999-2003, the primary school attendance rate of male children is 87% while that of female children is 83%. 6% of children aged 5 to 14 are involved in labour activities, 78% of which are in the agricultural sector. NGOs active in the sector estimate the number of working children at about 2 million. The Labour Law is usually enforced adequately in the public sector but enforcement in the private sector is not adequate, and is nonexistent for informal workers. The fines that offenders have to pay in child labour cases were increased from 4 US$ in 1999 to 80 US$ in 2003. But there is still clear evidence of employers who abuse, overwork and often endanger many children workers. Although some improvements were made by the new Labour Law on legislative aspects and the government reported that inspection has been strengthened, effective enforcement of child labour regulation remains an issue of serious concern. In the rural sector, children are employed in commercial as well as subsistence agriculture. Children often work in repair and craft shops, in heavier industries such as brick making and textiles, and as workers in leather and carpet-making factories. Unicef reported widespread practices of poor rural families making arrangements for a daughter to be employed as a domestic servant in the home of wealthy citizen. Conclusions Child labour is employed extensively in Egypt in both the rural and the urban sectors. Despite recent legislative improvements combined with some governmental programmes to tackle this issue, child labour remains a serious cause for concern. Further improvements are needed both in law and in practice. IV. Forced Labour Egypt ratified ILO Convention No. 29 (1930), the Forced Labour Convention, in 1955 and ILO Convention No. 105 (1957), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention in 1958. Although amendments were made to the Penal Code in 2003 whereby sentences to hard labour were replaced by hard imprisonment,
9 the current legislation still provides for punishments involving compulsory labour such as defined by the Conventions. On several occasions, the ILO Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations has strongly condemned the imposition of sanctions involving compulsory labour as a violation of ILO Convention No. 105 and has called on the government of Egypt to comply with the Convention. In the case of strike by public employees which may be punished with imprisonment involving compulsory labour, the Committee of Expert has asked the government repeatedly to amend the legislation to ensure observance of the Convention. In 2002, the Committee of Experts told the government to amend national legislation to ensure that sanctions involving compulsory labour may not be imposed on seafarers who together commit repeated acts of insubordination, provided that the safety of the vessel or the life and health of persons are not endangered. Further, the Committee has criticised various elements of the laws governing political parties, and press and film censorship which contravene the provisions of Convention 105 that ban forced or compulsory labour as a means of political coercion or education or as a punishment for holding or expressing political views or views ideologically opposed to the established political, social or economic system. These provisions can be used against all opponents, including those who uphold basic fundamental principles of respect for human rights and democracy. The Committee has expressed concern that the very minor penalties provided in the law for employers found guilty of using forced or compulsory labour cannot function as an effective deterrent. Conclusions Forced labour can be used in Egypt as a penalty in cases of striking in the public sector or by seafarers and against political opponents. The use of forced labour by employers is not adequately penalised under the law.
10 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Although all ILO Conventions on core labour standards have been ratified by Egypt, in practice there remain serious difficulties with respect for core labour standards. 2. The government of Egypt has not acted on criticism by the relevant bodies of the ILO concerning various aspects of its law and practice with regard to freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining. In particular, unions must not be required to join a single union federation, and should have the right to be organised in small enterprises. Trade unions need to be able to control their own internal finances without intervention from the public authorities. 3. Although a limited right to strike was upheld in the 2003 Labour Law, the severe restrictions attached to this right continue to render it extremely difficult and often impossible. The law must be changed to bring it into line with ILO norms in this area. The security forces must not intervene to end legitimate industrial actions, and strong official measures are needed to prevent the use of violence against workers engaged in such actions. 4. The government of Egypt should act on the recommendations of the relevant bodies of the ILO to tackle discrimination effectively by revising the law to provide equal pay for work of equal value; encouraging training to undertake better-remunerated, non-traditional occupations; implementing workplace visits, labour inspectorate studies and surveys to ensure compliance with the law on nondiscrimination; improving access to means of redress in the event of non-compliance with the law; and improving representation of women in responsible positions in the civil service. 5. The government of Egypt needs to strengthen its efforts to ensure that the legislation regulating child and juvenile employment is effectively enforced and implemented. The government should pay particular attention to children working in the agricultural sector, including carrying out regular inspection visits to the cotton cooperatives. 6. The provisions of the law providing for forced labour as a penalty for strikers in the public sector or at sea and against political opponents need to be eliminated. The penalty for the employment of forced labourers needs to be raised to make it an effective deterrent to the practice. 7. In line with the commitments accepted by Egypt at the Singapore and Doha WTO Ministerial Conferences and its obligations as a member of the ILO, the government of Egypt should therefore provide regular reports to the WTO and the ILO on its legislative changes and implementation programmes with regard to all the core labour standards. 8. The WTO should draw to the attention of the authorities of Egypt the commitments they undertook to observe core labour standards at the
11 Singapore, Geneva and Doha WTO Ministerial Conferences. The WTO should request the ILO to intensify its work with the government of Egypt in these areas and provide a report to the WTO General Council on the occasion of the next trade policy review. References BBC, Egyptian Cotton Makers fight to survive, 17 December 2004 Education International (EI), Barometer on Human and Trade Union Rights in the Education Sector, 2004 Human Rights Watch, Underage and unprotected: Child Labor in Egypt's Cotton Fields, January 2001. International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights, editions from 2000 to 2005. ILO, Reports of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, editions from 2000 to 2005. Ministry of Information of Egypt United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report, 2004. US Department of State, Report on Human Rights Practices for 2000-2005 World Bank, World Development Report, 2002 World Economic Forum, Women s Empowerment: Measuring the Global Gender Gap, 2005.