The Egyptian Trade Union Federation Was Always
An Institution for Mubarak’s Regime and One of Its Tools
For Oppression, Domination and Corruption


by: The Center for Trade Union and Workers Services “CTUWS”
Monday, 8/12/2014
The last few days and weeks witnessed a series of governmental and semi-official practices which raise questions and cause concern regarding trade union freedoms and the workers’ rights especially when monitored and viewed with the escalated attack on independent trade unions in some media and TV channels owned by Mubarak’s aides.
There were repetitive events for marginalizing the independent trade unions. The most obvious of these events were: the meeting held lately by the Prime Minister with the Egyptian Trade Union Federation “ETUF” to discuss issues concerning the workers, the Social Legislation Sub Committee of the Legislative Reform Committee disregard of the independent trade unions in the dialogue on the draft law on trade union freedoms., the shocking statements of Mr. Sameh Ashour head of the concerned committee and chairman of the Lawyers Syndicate regarding the independent trade unions and civil society organizations in the presence of ETUF at a joint meeting for non-governmental organizations, etc.
Such events may seem normal. Some people may not consider them a non-democratic tendency for dealing with the complicated and interconnected status quo of the workers. But unluckily we cannot deal with these events far from their following contexts:
· The general conditions and the political space in our country witness undeniable debates and conflicts. Mubarak’s regime is still existing everywhere in the state institutions, executive bodies, government administrations public business companies, the media and in the political street. The shock conceived by broad sectors of the population after the court’s sentence to acquit Mubarak and his aides was not driven by the will of revenge as some described it. It was due to the increasing fears of returning back to the old suffocating regime.
We are totally biased to demands raised lately to draw the borderlines between the current regime and Mubarak’s regime not through criminalizing those who abuse the revolutions of 5th January and the 30th June but by announcing the clear position of the Egyptian presidency and government from Mubarak’s regime with all its particulars, institutions and practices. They should make it clear that they are completely cut off from the era in which our people’s freedom and dignity were lost in an unfair society which marginalized the vast majority of the population and concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few people who devastated the country’s land, expertise and brains. The Egyptian people summarized their demands in 25th January 2011 in livelihood, freedom, human dignity and social justice. These demands were not mere words but large headlines for the rights that should be guaranteed for every Egyptian citizen. There is no dignity for an individual who cannot provide food for his children or cannot find shelter or job. There is no dignity for an individual deprived of the right to expression and subject to injustice without having the necessary tools to confront it.
· The Egyptian workers struggled for long before and after the revolution to remove the legal barriers imposed on the right to establish trade unions independent from the officially ‘forced’ trade unions and to liberate themselves from all sorts of oppression and forced membership. But trade union freedoms, in spite of the gains made after the revolution, are still faced by serious difficulties and subject to serious violations by some devilish government administrations, managements of many business sector companies, some businessmen and private companies in addition to ETUF which is the trade union organization of the previous regime.
Workers and trade unionists in hundreds of the independent unions suffer from maltreatment. Tens of them lose their jobs because they exercise their democratic and legal rights. They lack legal protection because the draft law on trade union freedoms is not passed. Collective bargaining among labour parties stumble in shade of reversed situations and the infamous law No. 35/1976 which was supposed to be abolished after the revolution.
Last year has unluckily witnessed the worst forms of oppression in public business companies. Companies’ chairmen talk about liquidating the past three years’ accounts with the labour movement and its leaderships. They announced their intention to transgress the workers rights and claim that the workers have taken more than enough during the past three years!! They are getting ready to prosecute trade unionists because they criticized their bad management or attracted attention to the spots of corruption in their companies.
Finally. 18 employees of the Library of Alexandria were referred to Bab Sharq Court because they demonstrated on 8th January 2012!! The Library Director filed a report against them and a lawsuit was decided under the number 6625/2012/Administrative. But after 3 years, the general Prosecution decided to register the lawsuit under number 30204/2014/ Bab Sharq Misdemeanors Court.
· In this context, the CTUWS is renewably subject to the usual hostile campaigns of ETUF with its usual language and vocabulary. For the thousand times the Administrative Committee appointed to manage ETUF together with its allies from the public business sector are doing their best to keep their positions and assume that the others are conspiring against them instead of dealing rationally with the labour movement demands and acting seriously to reform the companies which stopped production lines and accumulated their products in their warehouses as indicated by the reports of the Central Accounting Authority which referred to the corruption of their managements; and instead of launching real dialogue with the workers and cleaning the atmosphere from the suffocating revengeful tendencies. Once again, they deal with the workers as if they are “herds” driven by “remote control”.
Once again, gentlemen, the workers are moved by the economic situation which is well known for all of us. They are moved by the feeling of their insecure jobs in companies with doubtful future and in shade of the bad performance of their managements. They are moved by the disregard and the blocked channels of dialogue and negotiation. They are moved by the feeling of oppression because they do not find anyone to hear their voice.
In this context, and in light of these facts and indicators, we would like to emphasize the following:
Ø Social dialogue and societal negotiations are the only fertile soil for growing an active democratic society. Their activation is the only guard against instability, violence and extremism or in other words against the point of imbalance which our Egyptian society reached in the absence of the mechanisms necessary for dialogue and social debate between the different social categories .. the mechanisms of organization, lobbying and negotiation which enable all the stakeholders to express their interests and exercise their influence in an organized manner in order to participate in policy making or at least affect and amend policies.
Ø The stabile, secure and democratic society which the Egyptians expect is necessarily the society in which a person can find decent work, fair wages under fair labour relations and safe working conditions; a society which preserves one’s dignity, security and inventive spirit; a society which protects its citizens and ensures their right to food, medical treatment, decent housing and safe environment; a society which guarantees equal opportunities for all Egyptians in education, employment and promotion and in monitoring, utilizing and enjoying the country’s riches and natural resources, achieving justice in the distribution of the national production, bearing the social burdens and responsibilities and protecting the weakest categories and providing the necessary opportunities for their empowerment.
Ø More important is that we, in Egypt, cannot get democracy, security and stability without social justice. Those who are worried by the absence of security and stability because of its impacts on investments should know that the hungry people do not have anything to lose. We cannot get security and stability without democracy and social justice. The transition to security and democracy cannot be achieved without social balance and the economic, social and cultural restoration of those who are marginalized outside the society in order to bring them inside the society to participate in realizing the country’s stability, order and safety. Such a transition cannot be achieved without social justice which opens the gates of the future which were shut for a long time.
Ø While the CTUWS rejects ETUF’s intentional abuses and refuses to deal with the labour movements from the concept of conspiracy, it emphasizes that regarding this matter as a “conflict” between CTUWS and ETUF is a serious deformation of the facts. The real conflict which lasted for years and decades is between the Egyptian workers and ETUF which has always been an institution for Mubarak’s regime and one of its tools for oppression, domination and corruption. The Egyptian workers were deprived for years from the right to establish trade unions. They lost their independent trade unions and organizations. They go repeatedly in strikes simply because they do not have real trade unions to express their interests and negotiate on them. They were forced to sit-in for days and months with their children and families in front f the People’s Assembly seeking someone to hear their voice and calling for the Manpower Committee to convene and discuss their issues in order to reach solutions and agreements. They withdrew confidence from ETUF’s member trade unions. They resigned from its membership and asked the authorities to stop cutting off trade union subscription fees from their salaries, but it was in vain. They put the call “to dissolve plant committees” on the top of their demands in every strike and protest movement, but it was in vain.
Ø Those workers are the genuine and authentic partner in the conflict. They are the owners of the indispensable right to establish their independent trade unions.
Ø The CTUWS which defended and will always continue to defend the Egyptian workers’ core right to establish trade unions freely will always call for issuing a law to guarantee trade union freedoms and rights and for restructuring the Egyptian Trade Union Federation and its regulations and structures in order to cope with the principles of trade union freedoms.
Ø We called and will continue to call for the Egyptian workers’ right in their trade unions: to control their funds, decide ETUF’s affairs in a democratic manner and change the reversed trade union positions. We will always stand against any attempt to reproduce these positions which wasted the workers’ rights for long decades.
Ø The Egyptian workers will regain all of their lost rights.
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The Center for Trade Union & Workers’ Services (CTUWS) – Honored the French Republic’s Human Rights Prize- is an Egyptian non-governmental organization established in March 1990 by some labor leaders and activists guided by their experience in the Egyptian labor movement. They vowed to meet the urgent need to form an independent organization that advances and supports the needs of workers in a democratic manner, provide direct support and services to the workers and fill the void created by the “official” trade union organization which failed to achieve its fundamental obligations.
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