CAIRO: Al Ard Center for Human Rights said in a recent report that the crisis of temporary workers in Egypt has become “aggravated.” The report warns that since signing a restructuring convention with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the number of temporarily employed workers – currently at 3 million – might become “a mine which could explode at any time.” The report, issued on Friday, noted that the temporary workers are distributed among various fields of employment. Agricultural workers make up the first two million temporary employees, followed by construction workers with 500,000, miners and quarrymen with 340,000 temporary workers, and finally 70,000 navigation workers. The report highlighted the 600 thousand employees registered on temporary contracts with the State administrative body. The employees have not been hired full-time despite years of striving to achieve that goal, thus contributing to the “mine” the situation is likened to in the report. Al Ard Center called on the government to show its commitment by permanently hiring the temporary employees and ceasing all forms of “legal manipulation” of the situation, such as firing the workers. The Center also called for the government to allow the formation of trade unions to defend the rights of the workers and determine their wages, as well as other advantages enjoyed by full-time employees. The Center also called for setting a minimum wage of at least 1,500 Egyptian pounds (approximately US $260). The study pointed out “a large conflict” in the calculation of Egypt's unemployment rate, as realistic estimates take into consideration the high proportion of temporary workers and those who did not sign contracts. These estimates place Egypt's unemployment rate at about 20 percent of the total labor force, or around twenty million people. According to the Center, the estimate is conservative. The report stressed the need to allow workers to exercise their rights to strike and peacefully assemble. The report called for amending the text of Article 198 of Law No. 12 to lift the prohibitions on the exercise of these rights, calling at the same time for amending the Law on trade unions to allow the formation of independent trade unions, which could then force public and private companies to pay social insurance for workers. Unions could also create a mechanism to monitor the implementation of such regulations and compel the government to not be speculative with the funds of Social Security. The center's report demanded an end to “intervention” by security authorities, who terrorize and pressure the workers when they express their demands for fair wages and incentives, or when they resort to protests and strikes. The report emphasized that the temporary employment labor is deprived of the advantages which represent 80 percent of the wage of any regular employee, because the basic wage accounts for only 20 percent of those benefits. According to the report, remunerations such as social and health insurance account for the other 80 percent of the wages. The government changed the conditions of more than 6 million employees in 2007, said the report, converting them from permanent employment to temporary work, also liberalizing the terms of dismissal and the displacement of workers. The report also pointed out that temporary employment is high in the educational sector, ranging between 250 and 300. BM
