When Egyptians overthrew Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising a year ago, independent labour activists had extra cause for jubilation.
They believed that in a new climate of freedom, trade unions, long controlled by successive Egyptian regimes, would finally be freed from shackles that ensured the quiescence of workers. As scores of new unions started to form after the revolution, pressure began to rise for a law legalising independent labour organisation.
A law was indeed drafted and approved by the government. But Egypt's ruling military council, faced with mounting strikes and stoppages by workers demanding improved pay and conditions, refused to approve it.
"The council preferred to wait until there was an elected parliament," says Ahmed Hassan al-Boraie, the former labour minister who oversaw the preparation of the legislation. "Of course there is resistance. Mentalities do not change overnight, but the main thing is that the announcement that such a law would be adopted was enough to give rise to an independent union with 2m members."
Now that the country has an elected parliament, activists are making a second attempt to have the law adopted through the assembly. It was presented last week to the parliament's suggestions and complaints committee, the first step in the legislative procedure.
The council's hesitation to enact the law betrays a mistrust of civil society that has been evident in other decisions by the ruling generals, and highlighted by the initiation of criminal proceedings against 43 staff members of five US democracy groups. The employees, including 19 Americans, are charged with receiving foreign funding without permission and operating without authorisation from the government.
The magistrates responsible for the investigations say they are looking into breaches of controls on foreign funding committed by a long list of Egyptian non-governmental organisations, and that other prosecutions are possible. The government has also prepared new draft legislation to regulate non-government organisations, which activists say amounts to a "nationalisation" of civil society.
"The military council is clearly not a supporter of trade union freedoms," says Kamal Abbas, the head of the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services, an NGO focusing on labour rights. "One sign is that when strikes and protests mounted in April, they passed a law banning industrial action."
Another sign, he argues, was that the council extended the mandate of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation for a six months after it expired in November.
But Mr Boraie, the former minister who is close to the independent labour movement, says it will be difficult to restore controls that existed before the revolution.
"I don't imagine that a return to the past is possible," he says. "The most important thing I did when I was in office was not drafting the legislation, but allowing independent unions to register with the ministry."
For decades, the Egyptian state-controlled labour unions had engineered their elections to ensure that the ETUF had compliant leaders who could mobilise workers in support of the government. But even before the fall of the Mubarak regime, the failure of the unions to represent the interests of their members led to the beginnings of independent labour action.
In Mr Mubarak's later years, low salaries and soaring food prices fuelled discontent, which translated into waves of industrial action, mostly staged in defiance of government-controlled union representatives. In most cases, the authorities gave in to demands for pay increases for fear that anger over economic grievances would turn into political opposition to the regime. That was a departure from an earlier policy under which the authorities used the police to quell any signs of labour unrest.
Mr Boraie says the new law was drafted after eight sessions of consultations between employers, workers' representatives and the government, and that it took account of all three parties' views. He argues that allowing independent unions, who have the confidence of their members, would facilitate agreement with the government and employers on contentious issues such as pay and benefits.
"The more a union truly reflects its members, the easier it will be to reach agreements through negotiations," he says.
Employers in Egypt often complain of the low productivity of workers and some also complain that once they give in to a pay demand, it provokes fresh industrial action for more concessions. But workers counter that many employers resort to illegal practices that include failing to insure employees or making them sign resignations the day they are hired, which can be used to dismiss them at any time.
The learning curve, experts argue, is bound to be steep for both sides until a culture of negotiation takes root.
By Heba Saleh in Cairo
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