More than 20 years after the issuance of the “Unified Labour Law No. 12 of  2003”, and after nearly nine years of preparing and proposing various ver sions of an updated labour law, the government has put forward a new labour  bill at a time of extreme instability, severe inflationary pressures, and a cost of-living crisis for the country’s wage earners. 

Egypt’s labour movement expanded in size and activity after the 2003 law was  issued, reaching its peak during the 25 January 2011 revolution and its after math, which were centered around protests against low wages and anti-work er government policies. The 2003 law is widely seen as favoring employers  over work and workers, and the new draft law embraces the same philosophy. 

Law No. 12 of 2003 abolished a legacy of labour benefits and paved the  way for the neoliberal policies that came into force with the inauguration of  Ahmed Nazif’s government in July 2004. Billed as a “flexible labour market,”  this new situation enabled employers to easily hire and fire while also boosting  foreign and local investment by restricting the labour share of GDP—reducing  real wages through low bonuses and allowing labourers to work long hours  without job security or occupational health guarantees. While the law, like its  new counterpart, spoke of creating a balance between the two parties to the  employment relationship, its content was clearly biased towards employers at  the expense of employees. 

The new law likewise embraces a “flexible labour market” by lubricating hir ing and firing processes and enabling various modes of exploitation. Indeed,  instead of addressing the bias against workers, it extends the neoliberal ap proach of the 2003 law at a moment when Egypt has one of the highest rates  of foreign (mainly Gulf) acquisition of productive assets. The new law thus  puts workers up for grabs by existing and new employers, Egyptians and for eigners alike. 

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