The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) is drafting a memorandum to be submitted to Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi calling for better wages.
Ali Othman, ETUF’s media coordinator, said union leaders met on Saturday night and decided to issue the memorandum which calls on El-Beblawi to officially add the sum of annual and social bonuses public workers receive to the total sum of their salaries.
Othman said the workers already receive the annual and social bonuses, so adding them to the sum of the salaries would not be an extra burden on the state. “Yet, the sum of our actual salary is directly proportional to the quantity of the bonuses we receive,” Othman said. “So officially adding the sum of the bonus to the salary would increase our chance of getting better bonuses and of getting promoted,” he said.
ETUF leaders stressed it is crucial for that step to be taken before a law allocating minimum wages for public workers is issued. Othman stated that if the amount of the workers’ salaries were increased before issuing minimum wages, they would secure a larger increase in their salary after the minimum wages law is issued.
The ETUF is expecting the new law to set the minimum wage at EGP 1800.
Public workers receive an annual social bonus at the beginning of the fiscal year in July which range between 10% and 30% of their salaries. The bonus was set at 10% for the year 2013, Othman said.
