According to emails exchanged between Radi and his boss and seen by us, the boss was aware that Radi is suspected of having caught the virus too. The Occupational Safety and Health Checklist for Biological Hazards issued by the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration and the International Labor Organization (ILO), states that employers should encourage workers suspected of contracting coronavirus to not come to the workplace.
In March, Radi filed Complaint No. 3639423 with the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration, but he says the complaint remained dormant until he talked about his problem to an official with the Administrative Control Authority. The official managed to get the complaint moving, leading to negotiations with the employer, which ended in Radi getting part of his dues.
Sulaf Darwish, head of the Parliamentary Committee on Manpower, said the State offered many decrees during the coronavirus pandemic to protect Egyptian workers and enhance their living conditions, including bank loans, deferred loan repayments and other soft loans.
Through the Central Bank, the State offered many grants to protect labor during the coronavirus pandemic, she said, and while some companies tried to lay off workers, Labor Bureaus fended off these attempts and imposed large fines on such companies once the bureaus received many complaints.
Worker Rights in Case of Arbitrary Dismissal:
-
A compensation equal to at least a full two-month pay for each year of service (Article 122).
-
If the years of service are less than 10 years: A two-month paid notice before contract termination (Article 111/Article 118).
-
If the years of service are more than 10 years: A three-month paid notice before contract termination (Article 111/Article 118
-
The worker’s dues, including allowances, pending wages, commissions... etc. (Article 122).
Useless Subsidies
Like many tourist and hotel facilities “M”, a hotel on Al-Haram Street, received a subsidy from an emergency fund set up last year by the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration, in cooperation with the Federation of Tourism Chambers, to help these facilities pay the wages of their employees. This subsidy is equal to 100% of the basic salary or at least EGP 600, and was supposed to be paid to insured employees, according to a list we obtained.
We double checked the list with Issam Sa’dawi, member of the Federation of Tourism Chambers. “This list is related to the fourth and fifth payments (of the subsidies); EGP 600 for each employee, starting in March,” he says. “We applied for the sixth and seventh payments.”
Yet, Amr Ali and Imad Mohammad, who worked for hotel “M”, were arbitrarily laid off together with many others.
Amr was laid off a week after he contracted coronavirus in early February and was told so by phone. Although he told the hotel about his sickness, he was asked to show up after his self-isolation period was over to conclude his dismissal formalities.
Amr joined others in a collective lawsuit filed by the dismissed workers’ lawyer, Shaaban Khalife.
The labor lawyer said employers took coronavirus sicknesses as an excuse to arbitrarily fire workers in the face of difficult economic conditions, despite that these conditions have affected everyone.
He alone documented the dismissal of 200 workers while they suffered from the novel coronavirus, he said.
After dismissal Amr, the breadwinner in a family made up of his wife and three children, found himself with little income and no compensation.
Mohammad’s story isn’t very different. He was fired while he suffered the disease’s symptoms. He says that he tried to get back to work but to no avail and that the hotel didn’t pay him his dues.
Three workers who were dismissed from the hotel told us that they didn’t know about the grant and didn’t get it separately.
During economic difficulties witnessed by companies, especially in the tourism sector, many workers were fired, said a report by the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services, which traced many dismissals and open leave of absences.
The center, a non-governmental organization founded in 1990 and focusing on labor cases, reported 17,000 violations in many sectors, including tourism, manufacturing and even education.
click to view the data
