The dispute over temporary staff at Capital University, formerly Helwan University, escalated again in July. Attendance fingerprint access was disabled and wages withheld for approximately 128 employees and workers who refused new contracts. Workers say the terms deny their employee status and jeopardise prospects of permanent appointment after approximately 15 years of service.
On 2 August 2026, dozens protested at the university’s main entrance and outside president El Sayed Kandil’s office. Zawia3 documented the gathering. Protesters opposed pressure to sign and exclusion from health insurance, including for colleagues with cancer and chronic illnesses.
An academic source who requested anonymity says some participants faced security measures and police reports alleging unlawful assembly, demonstrations, attacks on the university and preventing the president from entering his office.
The source says university officials subsequently bargained with employees after National Security summonses, leading some to sign. According to the source, Kandil personally filed a complaint and later withdrew it in exchange for signatures. The number refusing reportedly fell from 128 in July to approximately 67 or 68.
Zawia3 also obtained a police incident record numbered 6, registered as Helwan administrative report 7346 and dated 3 August 2023. Its stated date precedes the current 2026 escalation. It records an employee, identified by initials, attending the station with 19 colleagues to complain that management prevented them from reporting to work that day.
The 40-year-old complainant said the incident occurred at the university in front of other workers before they went to the station. He described their relationship with the respondents as university employment, denied previous disputes and requested an official record of the circumstances. University management was listed as the respondent.
A leaked recording of a university official obtained by Zawia3 describes plans to treat approximately 90% of those still refusing to sign as participants in the early-August protest, potentially referring them to the Administrative Prosecution.
The official says a memorandum alleges a strike, disruption of public security and unlawful assembly, with protest videos intended as evidence. She says employees have until 31 August to sign, after which refusal could lead to referral. These are statements in the recording, not a finding that the allegations against workers were established.
Contract Terms and the Path to Permanent Appointment
On 2 June 2026, the university council’s session No. 582 approved renewal of 14 employment contracts and 28 assistance-service contracts in the General Administration for Engineering Affairs, within its 2026/2027 staffing plan, according to two university documents.
A memorandum from the university council affairs administration states that the same session approved renewal for 197 contractors across the university: 110 on employment contracts and 87 on assistance-service arrangements.
The decision followed a memorandum from the university secretary about renewals under the staffing budget. Contracts were to be approved by the president or an authorised delegate.
The council also agreed to contact the Central Agency for Organization and Administration again about transferring contractors on the seasonal-wage item in Chapter One, in preparation for permanent appointment. The memorandum authorised the university secretary to approve contracts and identified the attached names for renewal.
The decision therefore concerns 2026/2027 renewal alongside a separate pathway requiring agency action before permanent appointment. A letter dated 30 June 2026 from Mohamed Mansi, director general of Human Resources Operations, to Engineering Affairs requested the necessary renewal measures and likewise referred to seasonal-wage transfers.
The dispute began in March 2025, when Human Resources told temporary staff to sign new contracts in preparation for renewal from 1 July. More than 280 technicians, accountants, student-affairs employees, workers and drivers across university departments and faculties then objected that the contracts would reduce them to insecure daily work without stable pay or insurance rights.
Zawia3 previously obtained the proposed contract. It is between Helwan University, represented by its president or legal delegate, and the individual undertaking specified work.
Clause Two requires all assigned duties consistent with the work’s nature and periodic progress reports. Clause Three sets a fixed term and states that renewal requires the university’s express approval rather than occurring automatically.
Clause Four provides a comprehensive contractual remuneration covering entitlements and subject to Egyptian taxes. Clause Five requires accuracy, integrity and dedication of working time to duties, prohibits gifts or commissions and makes the individual responsible for execution errors.
Clause Six states that the contractor cannot claim permanent appointment on the basis of the agreement except within the rules and laws of the Central Agency for Organization and Administration and the Finance Ministry. The worker must comply with applicable legal provisions and internal regulations.
Clause Seven lists disciplinary measures: warning; deductions from comprehensive remuneration of up to ten days at a time or 30 in a year; a 15-day deduction with a warning of termination; and final cancellation of the contract.
Clause Eight permits termination on an approved request by the worker, absence for five consecutive or ten separate days without an accepted reason, an offence affecting the dignity of public employment, or expiry of the purpose for which the agreement continues. It requires at least one month’s notice and says termination does not remove disciplinary or legal liability.
Clause Nine subjects the agreement to Civil Service Law No. 81 of 2016 and refers interpretation or implementation disputes to the competent Egyptian courts. The final clause provides for a single copy in the employee’s file, with its term counted as an extension of the individual’s original contractual service.
The report questions these terms in light of Article 73 of the Civil Service Law. It provides a route to appointment at the lowest grades on the fixed-wage item for temporary and contracted staff engaged before 30 June 2016, after at least three years on Chapter One’s seasonal-wage item and subject to the position’s requirements.
Article 187 of the executive regulations requires a pre-30 June 2016 contract, satisfaction of the relevant qualifications and experience, and a vacant, funded position in the unit’s budget. Permanent appointment is therefore conditional, rather than an automatic entitlement for every temporary worker.
In January 2022, agency chairman Saleh El Sheikh said the Central Agency for Organization and Administration was implementing Article 73 for eligible contractors with at least three years in budgeted posts under Chapter One, subject to the legal conditions.
The review process checks units’ requests, job descriptions and qualifications, approvals, national identity numbers against the employment-and-wages database, whether applicants hold another public job or have reached retirement age, and whether they remain in service.
The arrangements discussed in the report cover contracts on Chapter One and transfers from other budget chapters into it, as well as certain special-fund and account contracts. Their applicability depends on the contracting dates, budget classification and transitional rules; they do not remove the statutory eligibility checks.
A State Council Opinion on Two Contractors
On 8 February 2025, the State Council’s second advisory committee, chaired by deputy president Mohamed Hatem Salah El Din Amer, issued an opinion supporting the appointment of two Helwan contractors to fixed-wage posts in the university budget, subject to legal requirements and the necessary agency and Finance Ministry study.
Hanan Osman Mohamed Khairy and Ahmed Mohyi Ahmed Hussein, working at the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Environmental Research, had requested regularisation comparable to colleagues at the Faculty of Physical Education who received permanent posts.
Hanan’s contract began on 25 April 2014 as an education specialist; Ahmed’s on 1 July 2015 as an architectural technician. Both received monthly comprehensive remuneration financed from the university’s own resources.
The opinion says their names were included in an October 2017 list sent to the agency and Finance Ministry for examination under Article 73 and its regulations, but their appointments were not completed although colleagues in equivalent employment circumstances were appointed.
The committee considered the Universities Law, the former civil-state-employees framework, Administrative Development Ministerial Decision No. 7 of 2010, Article 73 and Article 187 of the executive regulations.
These provisions, as the opinion describes them, permit temporary workers satisfying specified periods and conditions to be appointed on fixed wages where contracts precede 30 June 2016 and funded vacancies and other requirements exist.
The committee also relied on an earlier opinion of the State Council’s General Assembly of Advisory and Legislation Divisions recognising the eligibility of temporary workers meeting transitional conditions.
Applying those rules, it found that the two contracts fell under Decision No. 7 of 2010 and Chapter One, wages and compensation, despite self-financed remuneration. Each had exceeded three years. The committee concluded that the eligibility conditions applied and supported lowest-grade fixed-wage appointment comparable to their peers.
It stressed that implementation still required the agency and Finance Ministry study, funded university vacancies and all other statutory conditions. This was an opinion concerning two identified cases and cannot be assumed to settle every contractor’s circumstances.
Pressure on Staff Refusing to Sign
Before the latest escalation, 63 temporary employees filed Helwan administrative incident report No. 5067 on 30 June 2025. They said their colleague Hamed Ahmed suffered a nervous shock, lost consciousness and was taken to hospital after discovering that a new contract he had signed altered his employment status.
On 10 July 2025, the university council secretariat affairs administration issued a decision that the employment and financial position of contractors who had not yet signed the approved agreements should not be harmed. Salaries and entitlements were to continue regularly pending signatures. Administration director Mohamed Mahmoud El Desouky and acting university secretary Major General Mohamed Abdel Hafiz Abu Shaqqa signed it.
A temporary worker tells Zawia3 that management later contradicted that undertaking by withholding July salaries and disabling fingerprints on Abu Shaqqa’s verbal instructions, without a written decision. According to the worker, names were removed from payroll and restored by telephone once employees signed, while others remained unpaid.
The worker says complaints to the Cabinet were referred to the university secretary even though they concerned him personally. Kandil had not intervened decisively and had granted the secretary broad powers, including authority to sign contracts for him, the worker alleges.
A separate July 2025 university document describes council session No. 569 as approving renewal from 1 July for 55 employment contracts and 63 assistance-service contracts already signed. It authorises the president or delegate to sign and requires departments to activate the renewed employees’ fingerprint access.
The document also records revised comprehensive-remuneration amounts after parliamentary approval of public wage-increment legislation. The amounts listed are EGP 8,500 instead of 8,900 for medical staff; EGP 6,000 instead of 7,000 for higher qualifications; EGP 4,500 instead of 6,500 for intermediate and above-intermediate qualifications; EGP 4,500 instead of 6,350 for drivers; and EGP 5,200 instead of 6,200 for support services.
A kitchen worker says pressure escalated during July and August 2026. An administrative official called workers individually and told them the secretary wanted the names of those refusing to sign and that a notice would be placed at the gate barring their entry.
The worker says officials raised old court cases or personal and family disputes involving some employees, including matters settled or ending in acquittal, and threatened to reopen them unless they signed. He and six colleagues signed against their wishes, he says.
He also describes another employee receiving a call from a Helwan police officer about old disputes roughly three days earlier. Although the employee said they had been settled and he held withdrawal and acquittal documents, the caller said a case had been reopened. These accounts remain allegations by workers.
Four temporary drivers in Engineering Affairs say their names appeared in the 2026/2027 contractor list and payroll despite their not signing. They filed Helwan misdemeanour report No. 15015 on 15 July concerning suspected forged signatures, and the matter was referred to the Public Prosecution.
According to one employee, investigation was delayed because the disputed contract copy was held by the university and workers were not given copies. Prosecutors requested it to verify the signatures. The employees maintained that they had not signed, despite being warned of consequences if their allegation proved untrue. No finding of forgery is established here.
Parliamentary Efforts to Address Temporary Employment
In March 2025, Egyptian Social Democratic Party MP Samira El Gazzar submitted an information request to Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Labour Minister Mohamed Gibran about Helwan temporary workers. She said workers were facing termination after 13 years and pressure to accept terms damaging their employment and financial rights.
The issue extends beyond universities to schools, hospitals, private institutions, local councils and districts, Wafd parliamentary bloc leader Mohamed Abdel Alim Dawood tells Zawia3. He describes the continuing insecurity as a serious threat to workers’ rights. Union estimates cited in the report put temporary public-sector and government staff at more than 600,000; this is an estimate rather than an official count.
Dawood criticises successive governments that, in his words, neither hear nor see beyond their own obligations. Staffing shortages, low pay and insecurity damage institutional performance, he says, affecting citizens dependent on services and development as well as employees.
He says MPs have pursued information requests and other measures and that Parliament will continue addressing the file in its next session. He insists he will not give up raising it.
Recent parliamentary discussions have called for a temporary-worker census, regularisation and gradual permanent appointment, minimum-wage compliance and recruitment of workers who completed required training.
MP Safaa Gaber Ayada submitted an information request to the speaker, prime minister and finance minister seeking correction of temporary workers’ status and pointing to unfulfilled government promises.
Congress Party parliamentary bloc head Ahmed Essam questioned the prime minister and labour, finance and social solidarity ministers about irregular workers: counting their numbers, assistance, database updates and social protection programmes.
Labour Committee deputy chair Rawia Mokhtar said temporary employment was a committee priority and called for urgent solutions.
Dozens of Capital University temporary staff therefore face a painful choice: sign contracts they believe diminish their status, or face measures ranging from unpaid wages and exclusion from campus to possible Administrative Prosecution referral.
University documents and the State Council opinion show a conditional route to fixed-wage appointment for some eligible contractors. Meanwhile, workers describe continuing pressure, and MPs call for regularisation. The unresolved question is when repeated promises will become measures ensuring stable employment and rights.
