Cairo: 16/6/2004

Abolishing law of "Guarantees of the Unions' Regulations Democracy" and enforcement the rule of the right of every union to put the efficient law to organize its activities are the only way to reactivate the professional unions in Egypt

Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners      & Egyptian Organization for Training and Human Rights

Cairo: 16/6/2004

The representatives of the professional unions call for abolishing law of "Guarantees of the Unions' Regulations Democracy", otherwise known as law No. 100 for organizing unions elections and claim enforcement the rule of the right of every union to put the efficient law in organizing its activities.  

HRAAP and the Egyptian Organization for Training and Human Rights began the activity of "the Intellectual Salon" by holding the first meeting on 13^th of June as it discussed "the Status of the Professional Unions" under law No. 100/1993 and its amendments in 1995. Many prominent figures have participated in this salon such as Mr. Sa'ed Al-Far "lawyer and member in the secretariat of in the national party and previously in bar association council", Mr. Yahia Kallash "the secretary general of journalists union", Mr. Gamal Tageddin "member in the bar association council", Mr. Gamal Fahmy "member in journalists union council", Mr. Raga'e Al-Merghany "previous prime deputy of bar association" and Mr. Mohamed Hasan Al-Banna "representative of secretariat of coordination between professional unions"

 All discussions adopted a general inclination against law passivity and it responsibility for the form that afflicted professional unions and create irregular status in it and prevent it to perform its developmental role in society and deprived an entire generations of professionals to practice their union elective rights.

 The majority of participants described law amendment as "patch" that is not enough to remedy the situation and revive unions and asserted the necessity of abolishing the law. A large inclination held a part of the responsibility of the crisis persistence and elections suspension upon some unions according to the desire of some people in maintaining the existent status of their unions that causes emerging phenomenon of unions' corruption. Some others criticized mixing the party role and union role stressing the importance of unions to assume its professional, service and national responsibilities.

 Mr. Sa'ed Al-Far exposed the intention of the professional secretariats in the national party to prepare amendment draft to law No. 100. He said that the most outstanding thing is the restriction of judiciary role to voting, separation and announcing results without intervention in preparing lists of general associations' memberships and denied the existence of a law to destroy the engineering union issued from the professional secretariat and asserted that the secretariat does not any idea about that.

 Law No. 100 was described as a damned law afflicted unions with early elderliness, and added that the secretariat refused abolishing the law and satisfied with amending it. On the other hand, Mr. Yahia Kallash called for abolishing the law to eliminate its the whole passive effects that afflicted all professional unions with inactivity. He alluded that the judicial committee changed from the shadow of law from supervision committee on elections to a council of union that conduct all elective affairs by excluding the origin right of the union in this matter.

 Mr. Gamal Tag warned of amendments proposed by the secretariat of professionals and described it as a "disaster" as it depends on the idea of the elective associations of the union units and the method graded from level to another indirectly, indicating that this method make the member of the general association lose his direct right to choose members of the general unions' councils and threaten to destroy unions to small identities.

 Mr. Gamal Fahmy declared that law No. aimed at kidnapping the professional unions and caused prevailing union corruption and freezing the situation by excluding trends of union independence from responsibility positions and subjugating unions to the government in the context of a general policy aimed at dominating the popular institutes and excluding the others.

            Mr. Raga'e Al-Merghany tackled the issue of mixing the occurrences in some unions and the union and party role confirming the importance of organizations to perform their professional and service roles, and contribution to the national work by dealing with its general cases and protecting the democratic rights for employers, confirming that any law disregards the activation of the role of the professional unions in society will increase the complexity of the situations and the accumulated problems long time ago.

Mr. Mohamed Hasan Al-Banna declared that the secretariat of professionals in the national party discussed a draft law prepared by the committee of coordination between professional unions that insisted to keep conditions that create obstacles before elections. Unions claimed to activate its role and intensifying its activities for abolishing the law.

       The participants in the intellectual salon recommended the legislative committee in the national council for human rights to adopt the proposal of abolishing law No. 100 and its amendments and going back to the previous situation that recognize a special system to every union specified according to its nature.

The participants called for holding a round-table for the representatives of the professional union's councils to discuss their current situations to issue a democratic call give an image or frame to the future of unions and the democratic rules that guarantee them to perform their roles to promote the professional role and serve different occupations and contribute in activating and motivating the civil society role.

Law No. 100 led to immobilizing elections in eleven professional unions for a period varied from four and eleven years in addition to imposing protection for the first time on engineering union nine years ago and physicians' sub-union in Alex. In addition, the elections of the bar sub-association in Cairo were suspended and became like traders, appliers and veterinarians without representatives. There are also unions' councils without representatives from youth unlike their rules after suspending elections since 1990 like physicians and traders and dentists union.