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Syndicates and Workers' Rights
The right to establishing syndicates is one of the most important international work criteria protected by the United Nations. Section 4 of article 23 of the international human rights declaration states that everyone has the right to establish or join a syndicate that protects his interests, in addition to many recommendations issued by the International Labor Organization in this regard. The syndicate freedom agreement that protects the right to organization no. 78 for the year1948 is the basic referral for the ILO in the field of protecting syndicates in addition to agreement no. 98 for the year 1949 concerning the right to collective negotiation.
There are many violations against this right in some countries, like:
• Governmental employees in some countries have the same rights as employees in the private sector, while some countries refuse to provide its governmental employees with these rights, and other countries restrict the right to syndicates to some groups of the governmental employees.
• Some legislations deprive agrarian workers from their right to organization in syndicates, which was later guaranteed by the WTO agreements no. 11 and 87 and its recommendation no. 149 for the year1975 and the agrarian workers' agreement no. 141 for the year 1975.
• Agreement no. 87 also guarantees the right to syndicates to any type of workers including child labor, domestic workers, maids and servants.
• This right must also be guaranteed without any discrimination based on race, religion, gender, nationality or political opinion, that includes migrant workers according to agreement no. 97 for the year 1949.
The right to syndicates in Egypt
Although the Egyptian workers' union includes more than 4 million workers, but the actual number of workers in Egypt is over 20 million workers, which mean that more than three quarters of workers in Egypt are not represented by a syndicate or union and are deprived of forming their own independent syndicates and unions. The current syndicate law no. 35 for the year 1976 includes many hindrances against this t=right, like:
• It gave the right to the public union to determine the procedures of forming syndicate committees, stipulating that they must include 50 members, which makes it and administrative committee and it will remain like this till the next labor elections and when workers increase its members to 250 workers to be turned into a syndicate committee. We must put in mind that the ILO stipulated 20 members to form a syndicate committee, not 50 and not 250 members.
• There are many sectors and areas deprived of this right even when they have fulfilled the number of members stipulation. As the current legislation has specified the groups that can enjoy this right, which means that the groups not mentioned in this legislation do not have the same right.
• Some workers are deprived of this based on their age, as the current syndicate law and its amendments state that syndicate members must not be younger that 15 years old, which deprives working children younger than this age from being registered in syndicates although the new labor law acknowledged child workers under the age of 14. Even 16 years old children have only the right to voting till they reach the age of 20.
• Some workers are deprived of syndicate protection because of their political opinions and views, as the government deprives opposition workers from nomination in the labor elections.
• Some workers are deprived of the syndicate protection in the new industrial cities. There aren't any legal texts that deprives workers from this right, but the arbitrary administrative practices done by the work owners and businessmen and the weak support provided by the official syndicate organization have led to decreasing the number of syndicate committees. For example, an area like the 10th of Ramadan that includes more than one third of the Egyptian industry has only 14 syndicate committees.
• Amendment no. 1 for the year 1981 and no. 12 for the year 1995 deprived syndicate committees from most of their duties and gave them to the public union and general syndicates. For example:
- The Minister of Manpower has the right to form the general panel that organizations use.
- The Ministry of Manpower has the right to object to the establishment of any syndicate.
- The Minister of Manpower has the right to determine the salary of devoted workers.
- The Minister of Manpower has the right to determine and stipulate the labor electoral and nomination rules in syndicates.
- The Ministry of Manpower has the right to refuse or cancel any syndicate memberships.
- The Ministry of Manpower has the right to determine the way syndicate committees are represented in the general syndicate committee.
- The Ministry of Manpower has the right to determine the conditions of nomination to the syndicate boards and the period of each syndicate round.
In this context, the labor syndicate law must be amended according to the ILO agreements and guarantee workers their right to forming their own independent syndicates, and the state must support these new syndicates equally and in a fair way. The state must also apply suitable supervision and inspection means on the work areas that deprive workers from forming their own independent syndicates as a guarantee to the values of equality, justice and freedom.