Syndicate Syndromes

SYNDICATE SYNDROMES
Does the government’s new plan to put a lid on in-fighting and partisan politics in the nation’s professional syndicates fit the bill? Or is it a blatant attempt to undermine democracy, as Nasserist and Muslim Brotherhood union leaders claim?
By Manal el-Jesri



Some eras are remembered for the laws that are passed in them. Take Sadat’s era, for example. Qanoon El-Eib (the Law of Shame, outlawing all criticism “disrespectful” of presidential authority) will be remembered for generations despite its abolition many years ago. And so will Law 100 of 1993, which safeguards the guarantees of democratization of the syndical organization most pertinently the regularization of election traffic in Egyptian professional syndicates perhaps traffic jam is more appropriate in this case.




In over a decade, most of Egypt’s 24 professional syndicates, whose members number millions of highly educated men and women, have been inactive. Elections in the Medical Syndicate, one of the largest, have not taken place in 12 years. For five years from 1994 to 1999 the government had frozen the activities of the Lawyers’ Syndicate. The Engineers’ Syndicate has been actively suspended since 1995 because of financial corruption, and the matter deteriorated so much for the Traders’ and the Agricultural Workers’ Syndicates, that members no longer receive their pensions.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) regards these transgressions against professional syndicates as transgressions against civil rights: “There are 12 professional syndicates whose boards’ time in office has ended and no elections have been held to form new boards,” posted the EOHR on its website. “These include the Syndicates for Scientific Professions, Agricultural Professions, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Pharmacology, Trade, Applied Arts, Dentistry and Qur’an Learners.”

But who is responsible for the suspension of elections in these syndicates? The judicial committee entrusted with supervising elections did oversee elections in 11 other syndicates, so why not all of them?

The reason traces back to the inefficiency of the paperwork. According to Law 100, a government committee is responsible for informing the syndicates that they need to make preparations to hold elections. This judicial committee has continuously failed to send the necessary notification. The problem is compounded as a result of disagreements inside the individual syndicates over who to include on the syndicates’ board. The diverse affiliations of the members whether Muslim Brotherhood, Nasserist or leftist have made it difficult for the general assembly to agree on who they want as a representative in the first place.

EOHR regards all attempts by the government to impose any form of guardianship on professional syndicates as directly responsible for the delay in holding elections, and thereby the marginalization of the role of syndicates as one of the foundations of Egyptian civil society.





The government responded a few months ago by announcing that it was working on a new draft law to regulate the elections. Minister of State for the Shura Council Mufid Shehab, who heads the professionals’ committee at the NDP, said that the new draft aims to redress the problems created by Law 100. “We respect the internal laws of each syndicate. The new law is merely going to regulate elections,” he stated. Yet despite Shehab’s reassuring proclamation, the syndicates unanimously objected to the new draft, mainly because no syndicate members were invited to be part of the committee drafting the law.

Last December, lawyers staged a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court on Ramses street, which merely served to buy them some time. Shehab responded again with another conciliatory statement: “It’s difficult to imagine that the NDP would ever impose any legislation upon members of professional syndicates, without consulting them,” Shehab announced. “That’s why we decided to subject the new draft to an extensive dialogue with the various syndicates and NGOs before referring it to the concerned bodies for endorsement.”

The Lawyers’ Syndicate’s stance against the suggested amendments to Law 100 also succeeded in securing a promise from the government that the syndicate’s upcoming March elections will not be postponed under the pretext that they should wait until the new law was passed. But despite official promises, skeptics doubt the elections will ever take place, although the government has assured Chairman Sameh Ashour that they will be held subject to the existing draft of Law 100. At press time, candidates had started to submit applications.

But why object to a new law when the existing one has proved its failure? “The new draft law is riddled with errors, which makes it unconstitutional,” says lawyer Hamdi Khalifa, chairman of the Syndicate of Giza Lawyers. “It was drafted by the NDP without approval from the 19 existing parties, and without even referring to members of professional syndicates, which clashes with articles three and five of the constitution [on the people as the source of government and the multiparty system, respectively]. Furthermore, the draft limits the formation of the general assembly to a committee of council members from district and governorate syndicate branches. This fact clashes with articles eight and 40 of the constitution [on equal opportunity and equality before the law] and also violates the rights of the members of the general assembly,” Khalifa explains.

According to the chairman, the new law makes it even more difficult for elections to take place because it allows more room for government interference; and if they actually do take place, it makes it conducive for members of certain parties (i.e. the ruling NDP) to take precedence over members from the opposition. Control has been the main challenge ever since the Muslim Brotherhood members started significantly ascending to the governing councils of most professional syndicates. In 1992, at the height of the most violent clashes between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan were able to take over the Medical Syndicate’s council. According to many analysts, Law 100 was tailored purposely to thwart this “invasion.”





“I have worked on legislation before, when I was a member of the People’s Assembly. In respectable countries, each law is preceded by years of preparation. But in disrespectable countries, none of this preparation is deemed necessary. Law 100 was issued in the absence of the general assemblies of all syndicates and in the presence of strong objections from the governing party itself. The aim was obvious: to control activities of Islamists and to ban the Muslim Brotherhood from winning top seats in professional syndicates,” says Essam El-Erian, assistant secretary-general of the Medical Syndicate and a member of the banned group.

According to El-Erian, the government was and still is worried that the Brotherhood would prove their effectiveness in providing direly needed services it has failed to provide. Amr El-Shobaky, analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS) elaborates on this point further in his book The Medical Syndicate (2004). “Professional syndicates in Egypt,” he writes, “form a middle ground between direct political work and social and service work. And despite some syndicates’ attempts (mainly the Medical Syndicate) to play a political role which has replaced the role of political parties, it would be difficult to look at them as purely political groups. Professional syndicates have played important economic, professional and social roles.”

“In a country like Egypt,” he continues, “there is no direct system for providing services to citizens, such as European medical plans or the loan plans available in more advanced nations, where services are doled out to people simply because they are citizens, not because they are important professionals. But since Egypt is suspicious of the individual or the citizen, syndicates have become a form of moral and material reassurance for their members when seeking any form of aid.”

El-Erian believes that this justifies the suspicion the government feels towards the Brotherhood. “They want to stop [us] from presenting an example of effectuality and from reaching a strong podium to air our political views in the absence of political life. But our success was obvious from 1984 and 1985 when we first appeared. The syndicate here was nothing but two rooms where very little work was done. Today our activities have reached all corners of the globe. Wherever we go, from Afghanistan to Iraq, we show the true face of Egypt. They fear our success, and they don’t want us to show our abilities. The Brotherhood was able to gain the trust of a broad section of the Egyptian people. Despite the campaigns against Islam, and against Islamic movements, the Brotherhood continues to win any elections because of this trust,” he says.

El-Erian repeatedly describes the Muslim Brotherhood as the most organized of all groups to explain its success. “We are banned and hounded wherever we go. How does this make us organized?” he questions. “They are the ones who are organized. They have parties and newspapers. But they are weak because their message carries no conviction.”



For five consecutive years, the government effectively froze all activities at the Lawyer’s Syndicate.

Hussein Abdel Razek, secretary-general of the leftist Tagammua Party is incredulous that the government did not see anything wrong with the NDP taking over syndicate councils, but objected when the opposition attempted to do the same thing. “If it had been the NDP that was gaining more seats, Law 100 would not have been issued,” he says.

But despite the limitations posed by Law 100, El-Erian points out that the government’s efforts to curb the success of the Brotherhood in professional syndicates has been futile. “The law failed in its first test and the Brotherhood was able to succeed in the Pharmacists’ Syndicate. This has led the government to take dangerous steps like freezing the lawyers’, engineers’ and medical syndicates. The lawyers were later able to shirk the chains. But in 2001, although a Nasserist chairman won the elections, his board was mostly Brotherhood. And the same took place in the Press Syndicate,” he says.

Law 100’s most challenging clause stipulated that half of the members of any syndicate must be present for elections to take place, which was physically impossible since some syndicates number millions. El-Erian, however, believes that this clause has only proven the Brotherhood’s strength. “The more members attended, the more votes the Brotherhood received. It only showed the government the amount of support the Brotherhood engenders,” he says.

Hence the new draft, which limits voting for the main council to representatives. “This is going to make [the government’s] image even worse in front of the rest of the world,” explains El-Erian. “All reform initiatives talk about civil society and the importance of encouraging civil work. Professional and labor syndicates are the backbone of civil society. And what has the government done? It has nationalized labor syndicates, frozen professional syndicates and paralyzed the actions of NGOs. It looks very bad,” he says. “Now the government wants to beautify itself with nominal changes. It’s ridiculous. Our stance as professionals is clear: Law 100 must be cancelled and syndicates should be left to their members, to be run according to their own internal laws,” he says.

Abdel Razek agrees, despite the political disparity between his position as a confirmed leftist and El-Erian’s position as a declared Islamist. “All professional syndicates have their own laws, which were approved by the legislative authorities, and which had been amended several times to suit the inner workings of each profession. The strange thing about Law 100 is that it attempted to unify the workings of professional syndicates where elections are concerned, handing this job to what they term a judicial committee,” he says.


It is this judicial committee which decides to call for elections on a whim. “We have won several cases against the committee, mandating that it call for elections in the Medical Syndicate. But it has ignored all of these verdicts for the past 12 years,” El-Erian says.

Abdel Razek, on the other hand, is reluctant to refer to the committee as “judicial”. He says, “It is a misleading term. A judge is someone who sits in court and looks into a case presented to him or her. What this committee of judges does is look into administrative issues. It is not doing legal work, so it should be called an administrative committee.”

Although Abdel Razek is cautious about claiming that the existence of the committee is unconstitutional, he does accede that several cases were heard in the Higher Constitutional Court to that effect. “Still, this committee has the right to run the inner workings of syndicates in case elections are not held. Can you believe that a judge currently runs the Engineers’ Syndicate? As a result of the work of this committee, the councils of most syndicates have lost their legitimacy. The committee works solely according to political criteria, disregarding the professional need for the existence of syndicates in the first place,” Abdel Razek says. “Syndicates are there to fend for members’ rights. But today, the main thing syndicates do is provide services. Candidates use these services as leverage to gain votes.”

Khalifa of Giza Lawyers’ Syndicate disagrees. He believes members must ensure that their candidate can provide these services, which he believes is as important as the political considerations. “A man is judged by his deeds. And I am glad to say that the past period has been a time of accomplishments. We built new headquarters, a river club, a social and sporting club, and a residential project over an area of 88 feddans. When you step forward to occupy a certain position, you must work on all axes. Professional criteria are as important as the services we are able to provide to voters,” he says.

Abdel Razek, on the other hand, believes that this high demand for services has led some candidates to abuse the situation. Take the Press Syndicate elections as an example. “Voters have been divided according to the institution to which they belong, be it Al-Ahram or Al-Akhbar, etc. Chairmen of institutions can now find out who voted against them and begin to hound or coerce them. The services provided by each chairman have become the determining criteria for their election. During the past elections, we had banners saying ‘No to the control of Al-Ahram’. But the fact remains that the existing council includes four or five members who work for Al-Ahram,” he says.


Abdel Razek explains that the power of the chairmen is derived from the government, which appoints them as representatives, giving them access to endless funds and projects to provide to their members. Political conflicts still exist, however, where the formation of the governing councils of syndicates is concerned. Mohamed El-Sayed Said, deputy director of the ACPSS is amazed at how the political conflicts inside syndicates mirror those existing outside. “The existing conflict between the Nasserist chairman of the Lawyers’ Syndicate Sameh Ashour and his Brotherhood-domineered council is very similar to the conflict that existed between Nasser and the Brotherhood in the past,” he says. But despite the conflict, which has led Ashour to file and win a case against his deputy Mohammed Tousson, banning the latter from signing any syndicate checks, Said observes a great degree of political suaveness in these conflicts. “Professionals have learnt a good lesson. They have decided that no matter what the conflicts are, the syndicates must continue to exist. So despite the viciousness of the battles at the Lawyers’ Syndicate, it is a much more civilized conflict that in no way resembles the violent clashes of the mid 1980s, in which white weapons were used by candidates and members,” he points out.

Another issue, which Said believes has splintered from the amendment of Law 100, is a “strange” mix of alliances. “It is very difficult now to find a pure camp with specific political affiliations. The government allies with the Nasserites or with the Brotherhood,” he says. This is baffling considering why Law 100 appeared in the first place, namely to curb the Brotherhood.

Abdel Razek notes these contradictions with a laugh, claiming that today these rumored alliances are sometimes used to weaken the position of certain candidates. “They say Ashour is allying with the government this time, and that NDP member Ragaii Attiyya is allying with the Brotherhood. Of course, you shouldn’t believe all you hear. Nobody is willing to show their cards this early on, but it leaves a lot of material for the rumor mill,” he says.

But no matter what the political affiliations are, the chaos surrounding syndicate life in Egypt is serving no one, especially the professions represented in the syndicates, remarks Said. “The idea of professional control and guidelines has been completely ignored. In the quagmire of political conflicts, no candidate dares to talk about professional guidelines or ethics. They must only talk about how much more money or services they are going to bring members,” he says.

El-Erian agrees. “There are several professional issues that we need to address, but we don’t because we lack the stamina. We need elections, we need a new council with enough energy to look at many problems that have come up either because of the growing numbers of doctors or because of the free trade agreements that will definitely affect the profession,” he says. El-Erian also complains of boredom, which is very limiting to the creativity of the council. “Can you imagine doing the same thing for 16 years? The council has not changed, four of our members have passed away, and four have left the country. The remaining members have to do all the work. I’ve had to take unpaid leave from my job because the government has refused to grant me my salary with permission to work solely in the syndicate,” he says.


Another problem threatening the profession, says El-Erian, is that the last 12 classes of medical school graduates have lost all contact with the syndicate due to the absence of elections. They only come to the headquarters to renew their IDs, but other than that, they’re not aware of the role of the syndicate. “We have 12 classes that have not practiced democracy, and who do not know how to vote,” he says.

Said is amazed at the government’s sangfroid regarding the situation of professional life in Egypt. “The government still deals with the issue in its usual conspiratorial way. It disregards the fact that these professionals are its partners in leading the nation to prosperity. It uses cannon-arms to force laws, which no one is allowed to discuss with it. In doing so it misses the point: that the issue of professional syndicates transcends politics. Of course there are political sides to it, but there is a national necessity for syndicates to work properly. If Egypt is to grow, the idea of professional control becomes of utmost importance. There must be clear criteria for professional work. The basic idea in modern society is the idea of rights, i.e. a physician has rights and so does the patient. Doctors must not be allowed to deal with their patients with disgust, and journalists must not be allowed to invade the public’s privacy. It is the only way for society to develop. It is an economic necessity. There must be professional guidelines clear to all if we are to deal with the open markets,” he says.

Abdel Razek points out that not only are professional guidelines not implemented, but the right to conduct sit-ins and strikes is not allowed either, which is an important part of syndicate life. “Although Egypt has signed international declarations that grant citizens the right to strike, and although international declarations must overpass national laws, strikes are almost criminalized by Egyptian laws. And I do not see another way for syndicate laws to change. Professionals must take a strong unified stand, which does not seem possible in the coming period. Law 100 must be abolished. And it does not look like the government is planning to do anything of the sort. All it is suggesting are some amendments, and in view of what I have read about these amendments, they are even worse than the law itself,” he says.

El-Erian agrees, pointing out that “the law must be abolished, and professionals must be allowed to run their own syndicates. All of this must take place in a free atmosphere. But the reality shows us that what we have is emergency laws, government terrorism and restrictions on freedoms.”

“Professionals must be party to any laws governing syndicate work,” Said concludes. “Syndicates are civil entities and must only be managed by their own civil laws. Politics are important by default, but the idea of professional work is much bigger. Professional syndicates should stand united to make this happen.” et


The government would prefer that syndicates focus on professional standards and development than on organizing demonstrations like those pictured protesting against the war in Iraq last year.