Ten Egyptian rights and political groups urged the Port Said Investors Association to scrap a decision that would add an extra hour to the workday for employees in the Port Said free zone, saying it would lock in overtime as a permanent requirement and violate labor protections.
In a statement, they said the move was based on Labor Minister Decision No. 289 of 2025 on setting working hours at industrial facilities and amounted to a unilateral change in essential work terms, imposing an extra hour as a permanent obligation outside overtime rules and collective bargaining.
The association’s Jan. 12, 2026 decision tied a flat 500 Egyptian pounds ($10.64) annual raise to working “eight actual hours per day,” excluding meal and rest breaks, according to the groups’ statement.
Maha Ahmed, who heads the economic and social unit at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, said the statement is part of a campaign launched six days earlier to overturn the measure. She said the campaign also documented broader labor problems in the investment zone, including weak worker transport, poor safety protections, a lack of nurseries for working mothers and dismissals of women after childbirth.
Ahmed said there are too few labor inspectors in Port Said, with five inspectors covering about 300 industrial facilities, including 119 in the investment zone. She added that inspectors must obtain prior permission from the investors association to enter the zone, limiting surprise inspections.
The signatories said extending hours would breach Labor Law No. 14 of 2025 and undermine a seven-hour workday workers secured through collective bargaining in 2013. They also cited Law No. 133 of 1961, which sets a 42-hour maximum workweek for facilities subject to it, excluding breaks.
They rejected describing the added hour as overtime, saying overtime is meant for exceptional needs and must be paid at least the hourly wage plus 35% for daytime work. They said one extra hour daily would add about 24 hours a month, making the 500-pound flat raise worth roughly 20 to 21 pounds ($0.43 to $0.45) per extra hour.
The statement called for a final, public cancellation of the longer-hours decision, an end to pressure on workers to sign away rights, and investigations into arbitrary dismissals, along with stronger, independent labor inspections, enforcement of safety rules and guaranteed safe transport. It also urged protections for women workers, including nurseries and breastfeeding breaks, and an end to what it called “punishing motherhood.”
Nine rights groups signed the statement: the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, El Nadeem Center, Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance, the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, the New Woman Foundation, the Social Justice Platform, El Midan Association for Development and Human Rights, and Belady: An Island for Humanity, along with the Revolutionary Socialists movement.
