Press Report | About ECESR Conference on Civil Service Law

On 19 August 2015, the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) held a press conference on the Civil Service Law, featuring representatives of antiquities, teachers, education administrators, public transport and sales tax sectors.

ECESR legal advisor Khaled Ali was invited to talk about the disadvantages of the law, along with Mohamed Adel, the ECESR lawyer and head of State Council unit.

Public Transport

The conference kicked off with statements from representatives of public transport, antiquities and education administrators. Tariq al-Beheri, vice president of the Independent Union for Public Transport Workers, started by stressing that his wages decreased in July (as per the new law number 18 of 2015) compared to June (as per the previous law number 47 of 1978). This contradicts the statements of planning and finance ministers who said the new law will increase the wages.

Tariq added that the new law allows for sacking an employee after two weak reports from his immediate superior, saying that the law “sells him cheap to the private sector”. He finished by saying that most of his colleagues in Embaba Garage delegated him to any committees held to study the effects of the law on the public transport sector.

Teachers

Afterwards, Hussein Ibrahim from the Cairo Teachers Independent Union said the government is saying we are not under the law and hence we should not be protesting against it because we are under the teachers’ paygrade as per law 155 of 2007. But this paygrade is only applied to technical work such as guidance, specialization and the selection of guides. As for day-to-day administrative matters such as promotions and movements, they fall under law 47. Hence, they will certainly fall under the new law when law number 47 is revoked.

Hussein enumerated the reasons why teachers refuse the new law:

• Brings back the tragedy of early retirement and bankrupting the insurance funds
• Grants the executive authority the right to sack employees
• Transforms incentives into fixed installments
• Deprives employees of vacation days

Regarding how teachers are planning to refuse the law, he said a coalition of 27 trade unions convened on 14 May to discuss the law. All unions announced they refuse the law and held seminars and conferences to inform employees of its disadvantages. He invited the attendees to a meeting at the Doctors Syndicate in order to discuss escalation procedures, asking administrative prosecution employees to attend.

Antiquities

Ahmed Shehab of the Egypt Antiquities Union, an independent body gathering workers of the Antiquities Authority in all governorates, said that authority workers are the worst paid public servants even though they safeguard an important resource. He said they were expecting equitable treatment, only to find out that the increase is only 5% or half the inflation rate the Egyptian Central Bank announced.

Finally, he wondered how we can protect antiquities employees from corruption in these bad employment circumstances while reports suggest trafficking antiquities are the second biggest source of funding for terrorism. He asked whether the new law is considered a public call for corruption.

Education Administrators

Afterwards, Mohamed Shalaby talked about the education administrators, i.e. education employees other than teachers. He said they are living a nightmare because they receive wages less than the minimum wage economists valued at 1200 pounds in 2010, adding that his monthly salary is 835 pounds and that some workers receive as little as 150 pounds a month.

He asked if law provides for training youth without hiring them, then how is it preventing corruption? And why would insurance funds bear the burden of applying the law by providing five extra years to employees who choose early retirement?

He said the new law aims to decrease public workforce as per World Bank instructions, allowing managers to sack their employees by two weak reports. He wondered how such law is enacted without consulting real unions in a social dialogue. He stressed that unions and supporters must stand together against the law, and wondered whether security forces will prevent teachers and administers from organizing a stand on the September 10.

Finally, he said law number 18 is defective and will never produce an advanced society, and that will only benefit investors. He asked whether President al-Sisi knows who are affected by laws 16, 17 and 18 that he issued, comparing between Egypt and the countries who value social justice. He added that such laws are synonymous to the policies of Mubarak, where the wages of army and police increased three times this year while the wages of millions will shrink. In the end, he demanded a just and unified law for all without exceptions.

Legislation Philosophy

ECESR legal advisor Khaled Ali kicked off his speech by saying he is providing his take on the legislation philosophy of the law. He said everyone is aware of the negatives of the administrative body, including the employees themselves. These negatives include overemployment, resulting in low performance indicators. Then how do we go about reforming the administrative body?

We blame employees for all the negatives, forgetting that they are in fact hierarchical problems resulting from decades of misguided laws and decisions issued without consulting employees or their representatives. Such laws and decisions were politically used to satisfy the selected few, but now we are hanging the employees even though they are not responsible for such problems.

Unfortunately, the legislation text is not defective on its own accord, but rather the legislation philosophy itself is defective. Such philosophy answers questions like what is the purpose of the legislation, and what is its main objectives. The text is then written based on the answers to these questions. The philosophy behind law number 18 of 2015 is crystal clear in the statements of government officials: the main objective is to reduce public servants from 7 to 3.5 million. This is acceptable if carried out through a long term plan lasting for 35 years. The legislator should keep in mind the effects of the law on millions of people.

Tax Authority

Mohamed Abdeen, member of the Giza Independent Union, represented sales tax employees. He answered the allegations of the minister of planning in two points:

Who created corruption in the administrative body? The system here is to blame, not the employees. Enhance the system, and the performance will increase. He added that our administrative system is ancient, and that the top management does not wish to change it because it suits their limited capabilities.

As to wages, he wondered who received the biggest chunk of the wages item amounting to 218 billion pounds. We should know how it is distributed on different authorities and paygrades.

To conclude, Abdeen warned employees of the injustice they are going to suffer if they failed to stand together against the state. He said the protest law was issued to fend off labor protests, rather than fight terrorism. Protests toppled Mubarak and Morsi, so enough sweet talking and let us defend our interests.

Legal View

Mohamed Adel, head of ECESR State Council unit, summarized some points about the differences between laws 37 and 18 as follows:

In law 47, sick leave were 3 months with full pay, then 6 months with 75% pay, then 3 months with 50% pay. In law 18, sick leave is reduced to 3 months with full pay, then 3 months with 75% pay, then 3 months with 50% pay.

In law 47, penalties were removed from file after a certain period of time, and the penalties were directed to an activity fund. Law 18 did not mention where penalties go.