Thursday, April 16, 2020
Press Release
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The Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue has formed a crisis committee for the victims of the Corona pandemic working in the tourism professions with the aim of providing legal assistance and delivering their voice and demands for responsibility on all levels, Said Abdul Hafez stated that the foundation received a large number of complaints from the workers in the tourism sector, who were subjected to arbitrary treatment by employers in violation of the state’s directions and decisions issued by the President and the Prime Minister not to lay off and maintain employment, Basma Fouad said that the continuation of employers in laying off workers, and after the committee conducted a number of researches and studies shows that:
- A large number of workers are uninsured.
- The largest percentage of employers in the hotel and corporate sector have financial dues for them locally and abroad, causing a liquidity crisis.
- Most employers will not be able to continue to pay salaries as work and activity continue to stop.
- The emergency fund will not be able to afford all the benefits and salaries of workers in the various sectors working in the tourism field.
- Some institutions, such as the tourist rooms and the Egyptian Federation of Chambers of Tourism, have placed the burden on the state in the problem of employment and its dues.
- The tourism sector has enough money to preserve the right of the worker and aid other establishments that have also been in distress for 6 months, and these funds are the funds of the Tourism Companies’ Room, the Hajj and Umrah fund, and the chamber of hotels.
- There is a court ruling dissolving the chambers and the union has not yet been implemented.
- The state should intervene positively to allow funds to be directed not only to the insured because the largest percentage of workers are uninsured, to preserve the right of the worker and to maintain trained employment in accordance with the recommendations of the World Tourism Organization, so that we are ready to return to activity quickly.
- Failure to maintain employment will hinder the restoration of activity after the crisis, as it will be a major economic crisis for not a small number of people working in this sector, which needs a period of time after the end of the crisis to restore its activity.
Basma Fouad, the committee’s coordinator, demanded the implementation of the ruling to dissolve the tourist chambers, and that the state should reserve the chamber’s funds and direct them to the services of the sector and what the state considers the most beneficial. We also recommend the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and the Parliament’s Tourism Committee to follow up on the implementation of the president’s directives for the sector. The committee will also receive all complaints of workers in the sector and take immediate action to solve these problems.
