Minister of Manpower and Immigration Kamal Abu Eita has said that he is submitting a draft law on minimum and maximum wages to the Cabinet on Wednesday.
The draft was prepared in coordination with a committee set up by Deputy Prime Minister for Social Justice Hossam Eissa.
“We are also finalizing a draft law on trade union freedoms to be submitted to the Cabinet as soon as possible,” the minister said at a press conference on Monday. “Those drafts were advocated by the 25 January and 30 June revolutions.”
He said Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the ruler of the Sharjah emirate of the United Arab Emirates, donated US$2 million to the ministry to contribute to development programmes for the Egyptian working class.
He said the donation would go to the ministry’s emergency fund to finance some 6,403 companies and factories that were closed down, starting with Samanoud Textiles, the closing down of which cost Egypt some US$600 million in imports of jeans garments last year.
“We intend to benefit from the experience of Latin America in re-operating closed factories,” he said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
