The Tadamon Coalition, composed of labour syndicates and associations, sent on Sunday a memorandum to the State Council, to announce their rejection of the Civil Service Law which was approved by parliament last week.
Prior to this, the coalition had sent a memorandum to parliamentary speaker Ali Abdul Aal to stop discussions on the draft law, as it includes unconstitutional errors. They also demanded a discussion on the coalition’s self-drafted law and amendments to certain articles.
The coalition is a group of 36 anti-civil service law syndicates and independent unions. It reported that they have gathered 40 comments about the recently approved law.
Last week, parliament approved the new draft of the Civil Service Law after two days of discussions and amendments. It was then forwarded to the State Council, which should be reviewing the law.
The workers argued that several articles in the law are unfair, especially those related to salaries and the annual bonuses.
Al-Youm Al-Sabaa reported that several MPs have demanded that discussion of the law be reopened, however, MP Mohamed Fouad and coalition media coordinator Wael Tawfik denied this to Daily News Egypt.
The parliament approved two long-debated articles, which regulate an annual incentive and the appointment of temporary and seasonal employees or workers, state-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported.
The parliament also approved an annual salary increase of 7%, instead of 5%.
Labour unions have rejected the new percentage, as it does not account for the rate of inflation in accordance with the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) estimates, media coordinator for the Tadamon Coalition Wael Tawfik told Daily News Egypt.
Labour unions have attempted to pass self-drafted Civil Service Law amendments on to parliament, but those have been consistently rejected.
The Civil Service Law was initially rejected in February for a number of reasons, mainly due to its unconstitutionality. Its first article states exceptions for certain governmental authorities from implementing the law. It was resubmitted to parliament later in February, following the harsh amendments by the ministries of finance and planning to prohibit financial bonuses.
