CAIRO (ACTRAV INFO) - An annual meeting on social dialogue in Egypt which was held here on 17-18 May is expected to generate an action plan and a national strategy to strengthen social dialogue and promote international labour standards in the country. At the meeting, Government, worker and employer representatives from Egypt had discussed strategies to mainstream social dialogue into the agenda of the social partners and to develop the existing institutions to ensure their vitality and sustainability.

Supported by the ILO Project Promoting Workers’ Rights and Competitiveness in the Egyptian Export Industry, the meeting focused on:

• Enhancing social dialogue and collective bargaining between the tripartite partners;
• Developing an institutional and procedural mechanism for social dialogue at the institutional and organizational level;
• Developing a long-term road map to activate social dialogue mechanisms among the tripartite partners;
• Enhancing the role of mass media in highlighting the significance of social dialogue;
• Set up of a training schedule to enhance the capacities of the social partner with respect to social dialogue;
• Preparing collective agreement templates that may help to prepare other collective agreements for the targeted sectors.

Summing up the two-day conference, the ILO Cairo Office Director Peter van Rooij said: “The conference discussed the challenges and opportunities that were faced over the past decades by presenting the outcomes of the ILO position paper “Social Dialogue in Egypt”, which has developed based on the recommendations of last year’s conference. Also, we came up with a guiding drat for developing a collective agreement aims at improving the industrial relations between the different parties”.

“Egypt’s economy is encountering numerous challenges with a variety of social impacts. The inclusion of workers’ rights and promotion of social dialogue are relevant steps towards the implementation of decent work in Egypt”, said Nezam Qahoush, ILO Coordinator for the Arab States.

Over the past years, the ILO project Promoting Workers’ Rights and Competitiveness in the Egyptian Export Industry has organized annual conferences which were attended by representatives of the social partners in Egypt to review their proper experiences and good practices from other countries.

The first conference in 2015 reviewed the Danish experience with employment agreements, while the second in 2016 looked at the Tunisian experience in managing social dialogue institutions and sectoral agreements. Both conferences provided valuable insights for Egyptian social partners in the field of social dialogue, with a view to improve working conditions and productivity levels, and develop mechanisms that are conducive to a successful tripartite social dialogue.

For more information, please contact:
Mohammed Mostafa, Industrial Relations Officer
ILO DWT at the Cairo Office
Tel +2 01064383871
Email: mostafa@ilo.org