LabourStart headline - Source: Guardian

More... (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/25/egypt-third-revolution-workers-union)

"The labour movement is the biggest threat to any government," he said. "It's not armed groups that break down a regime but mass strikes."

Workers’ rights under attack

“As far as workers’ rights are concerned the proposed draft of amendments to the Muslim Brotherhood’s 2012 constitution is anti-labour,” says Kamal Abbas, Coordinator of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS) and a member of the National Council for Human Rights. Abbas was addressing a roundtable debate on social and economic rights and trade union freedoms in the constitutional draft, held on Sunday, 29 September at the Journalists’ Syndicate.

A committee of 50, representing many sectors of Egyptian society, is currently preparing the draft constitution that will eventually be placed before the public in a referendum.

But, writes historian of Egyptian labour Joel Beinin,“the committee of 50 doesn’t include representatives of the newly formed free trade unions”.

“Delegates from the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), the Egyptian Democratic Labour Congress (EDLC) and the Permanent Congress of Alexandria Workers (PCAW) are all absent from the committee; its sole labour representative is a member of the ill-reputed, government-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF).”

The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) was established in 1957 by Gamal Abdel-Nasser as an arm of the state. Its function was to control the workers’ movement.

“Its leadership has always been firmly in the hands of the ruling party, whatever its ideology or name,” writes Beinin. Official figures put Egypt’s labour force at 27 million. Four million are public sector workers affiliated with ETUF. The workers have no choice in the matter. Their membership is part of their employment package. Dues are automatically deducted from their wages. ETUF blatantly contravenes the provisions of the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention No. 87 regarding workers’ fundamental right to form and join organisations of their choice, even if these are outside the existing trade union structure.

“The anachronistic survival of the ETUF continues to deny four million public sector and government workers the right to freely organise, while domestic service workers are by law prohibited from organising,” El-Sayed Habib a veteran workers’ rights activist from the Gazl al-Mahalla textile mill, told Al-Ahram Weekly. These provisions constitute yet another violation of ILO Convention No.87, article two of which stipulates that freedom of association is an unalienable workers’ right “without distinction whatsoever”.

Throughout its history ETUF has opposed labour strikes.

“ETUF opposed all but one of the strikes that occurred during the past 15 years,” says Beinin, a significant record given that between 2006 and 2012 an estimated three million workers participated in some three thousand strikes.

“For the working class the constitutional draft is like taking a step forward and a step backward, which takes us nowhere,” says Abbas. “It may constitute an improvement over the Brotherhood’s constitution by guaranteeing public freedoms,civil rights and the effective separation of powers but the same cannot be said of articles addressing industrial action, freedom of association and economic and social rights. Take article 14, which is catastrophic. The article starts out by stating that ‘peaceful industrial actions like strikes and sit-ins are inherent labour rights’, which is all well and good, but then it empowers legislators to regulate such action. In essence article 14 replicates the Brotherhood’s article on the subject, granting legislators the authority to define the margins of industrial action.”

Labour Law No. 12/2013 purported to address revolutionary demands: in fact its text criminalises strikes under the cover of “attempts to delay production”.It denies workers’ the right to strike that is guaranteed under international ILO conventions to which Egypt is a signatory.

“If it gets tiresome to reiterate the same things it is nonetheless crucial,” says Ahmed El-Naggar, director of economic studies at Al-Ahram’s Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. “The aforementioned ILO conventions did not somehow descend on us from Mars. They were signed by various Egyptian governments. To prevent violations it is imperative that the text of the constitution display clear and unambiguous commitment to enforcing the articles of each and every international convention signed by an Egyptian government. These should in practice supersede any standing labour legislation. This would put an end to the historic strategy of referring the article to legislators who have historically served state interests.”

“Aside from its non-reference to binding international labour conventions, the constitutional draft is in many ways more deficient than its predecessor. Characterised by fluid and elastic language, its text appearsformulated to create ambiguity.Take the right to work, which is presumably based on the state’s vision of job-creating economic programme. Article 23 says that ‘the Egyptian economy is based on promoting the growth of economic activity and encouraging investment’. Yet nowhere does the text define the state’s economic role and responsibility to create and/or promote jobs that provide work to the unemployed. Flowery language notwithstanding, the right to work is absent from the draft.”

The same applies to articles addressing social security and welfare benefits, pensions and public health and education programmes: all are rich in rhetoric, all shirk spelling out tangible state commitments, says El-Naggar. The constitutional draft fails to link social security benefits to the minimum wage or state programmes to inflation. Instead, the open-ended text leaves the provision of fundamental rights to discretionary and flexible state budgets and the political will of whatever government is in power.

“In terms of workers’ gains the constitutional draft couldn’t be worse,” says Habib. “There is a false perception among the public that the draft privileges the working class because it keeps the obligatory 50 per cent parliamentary representation of workers and peasants from earlier constitutions. What they don’t realise is that we make up at least 70 per cent of Egypt’s people. In real terms the 50 per cent falls short of representing us.”

Yet workers remain upbeat. “The roundtable provided a fertile forum for discussion,” says Abbas. “We’ll formulate a proposal based on workers’ input and present it to the committee of 50. It is our duty to continue the struggle, not least for the sake of the hundreds of workers who were martyred during the revolution.”

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/4301/17/Workers’-rights-under-attack.aspx

No surprise here, it's the liberals turn.

Egypt: New Egypt protest law a threat to democratic norms: Independent Unions



Reasons to refuse the New Protest Law

Egyptians including labors have long strived for years and sacrificed a lot for the sake of freedom and social justice, and for attaining the rights of peaceful strikes. Since 2006, labors have started their revolution against social injustice, while challenging all prohibitions and overcoming all fears that banned them from expressing their rights peacefully through protests and strikes; a right that have been guaranteed by al international accords signed by Egypt long decades with no obligation.

Now, we are facing a new trial to oppress the Egyptian people and stole his rights in assembling, demonstrating and expressing their rights peacefully. The news of Cabinet approval for the protest law has been a shock. While, we have been eagerly waiting for the law of union freedoms and the abolition of all laws impeding freedoms and inherited for the past regimes, the government has surprised us with its approval for the protest law that has been transferred for the interim president for ratification without a social dialogue.

According to article (3) and (4) of the law, Those who want to organize a peaceful public convening, procession, or demonstration must notify the police station in charge of the area where the public gathering will be held or where the procession or demonstration will start. The notification must be sent at least three days in advance of the start of the peaceful gathering, procession or demonstration. The notification must include record of the names of the organizers (people or associations) organizing the peaceful public gathering, procession, or demonstration.

Article No (5) of the second chapter of the law gives the administrative entity the right to ban public gathering if it (the administrative entity) finds the gathering might disturb the general security, the fact that gives this entity the right to ban or approve peaceful public gathering as per its priorities.

Article No (8) gives police men the right to attend public gathering “The Minister of the Interior will issue a decision to form a committee in each province headed by the director of security. The committee will be tasked with specifying the restrictions and safeguards that secure the peaceful public gatherings, processions and demonstrations that they have been notified of. They are also tasked with determining the means to be used in the case it is no longer peaceful, and lives and public and private property are put at risk” the police my cancel the gathering in the following cases:

•If the gathering has a different nature than what has been notified discord
•If a serious disorder has taken place
•If the gathering include chants or statements that might cause conflicts or any form for crimes stipulated in the criminal code or any other law.

Accordingly, the article gives policemen the right to end any gathering once they suspect it might cause conflicts with no specification for the types and causes of these conflicts. The law has also given policemen not only the right to protect attendees and resolve conflicts but also to end the whole gathering as per their vision, knowing that this gives policemen the right to judge a normal human behavior of discussion and negotiations.

Article No (9) “If the participants, during the public gathering, procession, or demonstration, behave in way that is considered a punishable crime, or violates the peaceful nature of expressing their opinion, security forces in official uniform have the right, based on orders from the field commander, to disperse the gathering, procession, or demonstration and arrest the perpetrators of the crime.

Article No (10) gives the administrative entity the right to determine the rout of the demonstration and the place of the gathering in addition to the right to abolish the whole event even it was a funeral, after informing the organizers of the event.

Article No (14) specifics the timing of demonstrations, which should not be before 7.00 am. and should not last after 7.00 pm.

Article No (17) gives the policemen the right to inspect demonstrators and confiscate whatever material that might cause danger to general security.

The articles from (21) to (24) cancel out the essence of the right to sit in as they state that labors have the right to sit in inside their organizations without delaying production or harming the national economy??

How come that the workers would practice their right to sit in without stopping work at their organizations, or without going into serious negotiations with their employers through pressurizing them by stopping production till they reach an agreement that satisfy both of them as two partners in the production process and as stipulated by all the internal labor agreements.

Article No (22) indicates that the business owner should be notified 14 days at least before any sit in, the period is to be duplicated if related to any of the public utilities.

Article No (23) defines public and essential utilities including postal services, communicaoin, water services, electricity, gas, transportation, hospitals, bakeries and pharmaceutical industries.

Article No (24) has continued to set impossible conditions for sit in, strikers must inform their employer 24 days before their planned industrial action. Further, Article 24 says notification must be submitted in writing, and strikes cannot be undertaken without the consent of the respective union. This article allows employers to impose lockouts and factory closures as long as workers are informed in writing or via public notices.

Harsh Penalties are detailed in Article 25, which says anyone who violates the provisions of this law or hinders production or the functioning of public/private institutions faces imprisonment for up to one year and/or a fine ranging from LE30,000 to LE100,000. Those who do not comply with the prerequisites delineated for protest action face a prison sentence of up to three months and/or a fine of between LE20,000 and LE50,000.

The CTUWS declares its refusal for the draft protest law, knowing that this law would not be in favor of democracy that Egypt has been calling for during the last decades and Egyptians have managed to come close it through two revolutions were they lost thousands of virtuous youth. This draft law if enacted will not prevent Egyptian labors from practicing their legitimate right to demonstrate and call for freedom and social justice.

http://www.ctuws.com/Default.aspx?item=1302

While the MB went about pissing off the populace for no good reason(religion) the liberals and technocrats will piss off the populace for what the capitalists see as a very good reason, crushing labor. If the unions sit still for this they might as well disband, there's really nothing left for them to do.

(I think the last paragraph should read, "will prevent".)

Cabinet gives security forces right to enter university campuses

University presidents will have the right to request the entry of police forces into campus in case of “threats to individuals, entities and students”


Central Security Forces secure Al Azhar University after clashes erupted on 30 October (Photo by Aaron T. Rose)
Police forces will be present at university gates going forward to help maintain security, verifying entrants and inspecting cars, according to Prime Minister Hazem El-Beblawi.

El-Beblawi said in a press conference after Thursday’s cabinet meeting that university presidents will have the right to request the entry of police forces into campus in case of “threats to individuals, entities and students”.

The decision comes as a reaction to Wednesday’s violence in Al-Azhar University, where 27 people have been detained for 15 days pending interrogations with charges of breaking in the university’s administrative building, AswatMasriya reported.

El-Beblawi added that security forces do have the right to “directly interfere if the situation is out of control.”

Mostafa Saad, vice president of the Cairo University Student Union, said that all university unions will refuse the return of the police to universities, regardless of the justification behind it.”

“The current minister for higher education, Hossam Eissa was one of the most outspoken advocates on ending police presence in and around universities, now he’s calling for the return of the police.”

“I understand the difficulty faced by the current cabinet after daily protests within university, but we have called numerous times for the instating of private security companies”

On Wednesday, Public Prosecution authorised police forces to enter Al-Azhar University’s campus upon the request of university chairman Osama Al-Abd.

Al-Abd had asked security forces to enter campus to protect “lives and public properties” after a group of students broke into the university’s administrative building.

Al-Azhar University has seen ongoing unrest since the beginning of the school year on 19 October. On 20 October, students supporting former president Mohamed Morsi clashed with security forces after a staged protest denouncing the death and arrest of several Al-Azhar students turned violent.

Another round of clashes took place on 28 October when Muslim Brotherhood supporters from Al-Azhar University clashed with police forces during protests in the university and on El-Nasr Road.

Until 2009, the Ministry of Interior was responsible for providing Homeland Security personnel to secure universities. In 2009, the

administrative court banned this decision, establishing an “administrative” university security.

In September, the cabinet denied that the Ministry of Justice issued a decision deputising a number of administrative university security personnel to arrest students, describing news of the decision as “unfounded”.

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/11/01/cabinet-gives-security-forces-right-to-enter-university-campuses/

Take this and the previous and it's clear that the bosses are preparing for a major crackdown, the revolution is anything but over.