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gov't revises work week
by amena bakr
a ministerial decree passed on january 4 aligns the government
work week with that of the private sector. effective january 21,
many of egypt’s 5.7 million government employees will receive
saturday off, in addition to the traditional friday work holiday.
the saturday holiday replaces thursday, which was declared a work
holiday for government employees in 2000 as a measure aimed at reducing
traffic.
government agencies that provide essential services such as emergency
medical care, fire response and public transport will still be available
to serve the public on holidays, assures ashraf hassan abdel wahab,
senior adviser to the minister of state for administrative development,
the ministry that issued the decree. he says these agencies are
required to schedule rotating shifts for their employees to provide
services on holidays. in addition, important government services
including the passport department at the mogamma building in cairo
will take only fridays off so that their work cycle is not disrupted.
on the other hand, employees working in government agencies that
provide non-essential services will enjoy a two-day weekend provided,
as has been the requirement in the past, they log at least 35 hours
a week under the supervision of a manager. “the monitoring
of these employees has to come from the agency, never mind what
happens in reality or whether they actually work these hours,”
abdel wahab told business monthly.
the ministry’s decision to reschedule weekend holidays, he
reveals, was taken to alleviate some of the bottlenecks of the banking
system. “the main reason we decided to take this decision was
to unify the vacations between banks and government agencies.”
he explained that, prior to the decree’s issuance, government
employees only had four days a week to do their banking.
“there was a lot of pressure on banks on sundays since that
was the first working day for both government agencies, the private
sector and banks,” confirms ibrahim helmy, a spokesman for
the egyptian trade union federation (etuf). “now this pressure
will be eased.”
but perhaps more important, is that the newly organized work week
will help smooth the workflow between egypt and its international
trading partners. abdel wahab noted that “98 percent of the
foreign countries we deal with take a vacation on sunday, so that
created problems since the workflow was stopped due to the scheduling
of vacations here.” previously, egypt’s government agencies
were off thursday and friday, while western countries took saturday
and sunday off. that left only three days a week for interaction.
at the social level, the new vacation system should benefit families
in which a husband, for instance, works in the private sector and
his wife in the government. they will now be able to spend their
weekends together, and may also have more time to spend with their
children, as public experimental schools also have friday and saturday
off. “we could not impose this law on the majority of public
schools,” regrets abdel wahab, explaining that adding a second
weekend holiday to all public schools would disrupt the curriculum.
hassan amin, a sport organizer at the youth labor union, which aims
to create activities for government employees between the ages of
18 and 35, is also optimistic about the rescheduled two-day weekend,
which he believes will give people in diverse fields more time to
interact outside the office. “i think this change in vacation
will give us [the youth union] a better chance to have more participants
in our sport and field trips,” he said.
on the downside, the overlapped holidays means government employees
will have less time to complete personal errands with the private
sector and vice versa. but for many civil servants, the most difficult
errand to complete was banking, and having an extra day to complete
the task should help. “i find this change very positive as
it facilitates our transactions with banks,” said one mogamma
employee.
“besides, when it comes to traffic, the streets are always
crowded so i don’t really notice a difference.”
traffic, however, is expected to be the biggest loser. many believe
the decision to overlap the government and private sector weekend
holidays will only increase the traffic headache, particularly in
cairo, where up to 2.5 million cars ply the city streets each workday.
thursdays and saturdays used to be light traffic days, as only half
the capital city’s workers were commuting. now the capital’s
streets will be fully taxed five days a week.
mohamed abdel hamid, a traffic road coordinator in kasr al-ainy
steet, admitted saturdays should be quieter, but said roads will
become much more congested on thursdays. “when the vacations
are all taken at the same time i expect that the roads will be packed
at 9am and around 3pm when employees go home.” he, for one,
plans to work late on thursdays to avoid the rush.
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