Independent unions of workers at the Finance Ministry’s Egyptian Tax Authority are continuing to lobby for more protests against the civil service law, which the presidency enacted in March and has drawn criticism from several labor groups.
After a massive protest outside the Journalists Syndicate on Monday, the Finance Ministry workers union are pushing for further protests next Monday outside the ministry’s building in Cairo’s Abbassiya district.
The law regulates appointment criteria, vocational degrees, payments, retirements and promotions for civilian workers at government agencies. It has drawn criticism from labor rights activists and a number of trade unions which have vowed to lobby against the law. The government, meanwhile, says the law would bring a remarkable improvement to the state’s administrative bodies.
Next Monday’s demonstrations will be attended by tax workers from across the country as well as affected employees from other government agencies, one protest organizer told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Tarek al-Kashef, a labor activist and a worker at the tax authority, said the planned demonstration comes at the end of a deadline given by the workers for the government before they begin an all-out strike. He claimed that 70 of workers were absent from taxation offices on Monday to take part in the demonstrations, which, he said, effectively impacted revenues collected by those offices.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
