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EOHR demands reinstatement of employees dismissed
by Luxor International Hospital
6/4/2004
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) is concerned by the dismissal of five employees by Luxor International Hospital.
It demands that the Hospital's administration reinstate the five on the basis of the provisions of Article 13 of the Egyptian Constitution, Article 6 of the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These articles define the right to work as being a fundamental economic and social right.
In March 2004 a group of the Hospital's workers, including the five dismissed employees (Yasser Noubi Abdel Mutallib, Ashraf Moustafa Ibrahim, Rafat Abdallah Mohamed, Atef Mohamed Abdeen and Youssef Samir Youssef) went on hunger strike in protest against the Secretariat General of the Hospital's private medical centres.
The protestors demanded that the Secretariat alter certain unfair clauses in the temporary workers' contracts.
These provisions deprive temporary workers of incapacity and sick leave, and give the human resources manager the right to dismiss any worker without having to provide him with a reason.
Managers in addition have the right to make employees work for more than eight hours a day without giving them a wage supplement commensurate with this overtime.
The strike resulted in the arrest of hospital employees (including the five dismissed employees) and their presentation to the Prosecutor General on charges of riotous assembly, obstruction of work and inflaming public opinion.
The Prosecutor General detained them for fifteen days pending investigations after which time they were transferred to the Qena security administrative district.
EOHR sent a lawyer to attend the judicial hearing concerned with the renewal of their detention held on the 31st March 2004.
He criticised the arbitrary detention of the detainees for which no justifications had been provided in contradiction of Article 41 of the Egyptian Constitution and Article 143 of the Criminal Procedures Code.
On the basis of this the Prosecutor General cleared the detainees of all charges and released them.
However the problem intensified following their release on Thursday 1st April.
On Saturday 3rd the employees went to the hospital where they received notice of their dismissal, despite all five of them having worked at the hospital for at least three years.
The dismissal was hastened by the hospital administration's demand that the private medical centres' administration dismiss the workers immediately on the grounds of their hunger strike, refusal to work in various departments and incitement of their colleagues to join their protest action.
EOHR demands that Luxor International Hospital's arbitrary dismissal of the five workers be reversed for humanitarian reasons - the five support families and are the sole breadwinners.
It also underlines the importance of a re-evaluation of temporary contracts, whose provisions prejudice workers' rights.
It urges that crucial amendments be made to Employment Law No. 12 [2003]. A fair balance between employers' and workers' interests must be realised without either group dominating the other, for the sake of economic and social progress and stability which will have a concurrent positive effect on citizens' income levels and livelihoods.
Egyptian legislation as it currently stands contains an enormous number of provisions that constitute a flagrant attack on the working class in the way in which they deny workers their right to earn a living.
It leaves employees unprotected and at the mercy of their employers, particularly in relation to contract security and employers' freedom to dismiss workers - workers possessing no safeguards against such a dismissal.
Workers are also discriminated against with respect to their statutory right to leave, minimum wage levels, representation in the Supreme Wage Council and restrictions imposed on their right to instigate peaceful strike action aimed at realising their rights.
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