Roundtable on Pay Equity Held in Cairo, 10-12 July 2007

A roundtable discussion on the topic of pay equity was jointly held by SRO-Cairo and the Egyptian Ministry of Manpower and Migration (MOMM), attended by representatives of relevant ministries and social partners.

The objective was to address long-standing comments on pay equity in Egypt made by the ILO Committee of Experts, through clarification of the concept “equal pay for work of equal value”. This principle is enshrined in ILO Convention 100 (C.100), yet existing Egyptian legislation still reflects the outdated concept of “equal pay for equal work”.

There were 35 participants that engaged in a lively debate of the C.100 principle – which was very relevant, in light of the on-going national debate on the restructuring of wages in the public and private sectors. This timely discussion produced a plan of action and recommendations for the future. These include:

• Establishing a committee to follow-up on the pay equity issues, with the view of creating individual “Units of Pay Equity” in various Egyptian Ministries
• Requesting a technical specialist from the ILO Turin Centre to help identify any gaps in the rectification of pay differentials in the current national methods of job appraisals, and determine the feasibility of a unified method of job appraisals
• Requesting training for the new committee of Egyptian government officials established to follow-up on pay equity