Jump to main content
IndustriALL logotype
Article placeholder image

Schlumberger Continues Destruction of Independent Egyptian Trade Union

18 April, 2012

French oilfields services’ giant Schlumberger is continuing to resist attempts by a genuine independent trade union in Egypt to organize workers at its operations.

ICEM affiliates representing workers throughout the world are continuing to press the company on behalf of workers who were dismissed soon after the founding Congress of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), under which a Schlumberger workers’ branch is affiliated to.

The pressure has begun to attract the attention of senior management of the company. While Egyptian management ignored a request by ICEM General Secretary Manfred Warda to meet to resolve the dispute, ICEM has now been informed that the company recently sent a “fact-finding committee” to Egypt consisting of the legal and recruitment managers of Schlumberger’s regional office in Dubai.

The two company representatives met with the President and the General Secretary of the independent local branch union, both of whom are among the dismissed workers, including some of the workers who were forced to resign from the union.

  

Schlumberger demonstration in Cairo

In this meeting, ICEM was informed that the managers did appear to listen carefully to the whole story, but made no promises. However, they hinted at the possibility of giving them financial compensation, claiming that is was too difficult to reinstate them since this would be seen as Schlumberger admitting its behavior was wrong.

ICEM supports the dismissed workers who reject any financial compensation, and insist on returning to their work and activities inside the union. ICEM will continue the campaign until this issue has been resolved.

In an earlier escalation of the dispute, Schlumberger Egypt arranged meetings with workers of subcontractors in in the operations. Numbering some 1,500 workers, they account for approximately half of the company’s workforce in Egypt. In meetings at the Kattamia base and the head office, company representatives gave instructions to all subcontract workers that Schlumberger intended changing subcontracting companies, so they demanded that workers resign from their current contracts and then would receive new contracts under new subcontractors later.

The new contracts would not take into account previous working periods, thus allowing companies to dismiss workers during the first three months without compensation, according to Egyptian law.

But Egyptian Labour Law is presently uncertain and largely unusable. In theory, the old Mubarak era law, remains in force while there are at least three new proposed labour laws, drafted by different political groups, circulating in Parliament. The last trade union elections of 2007 in the former unitary government controlled trade unions, all part of ETUF, have been invalidated for corruption and the former governing structures of these unions dissolved with appointed oversight committees put in place to run the organizations until new elections take place – under a new law in the future.

The situation allows companies such as Schlumberger to take advantage of the situation to prevent genuine trade representation of their workforces.

Prior coverage of the Schlumberger dispute in Egypt can be found here and here.