In the second week of September, a two-day strike and plant-gate sit-in at the Nile Linen Group in Alexandria forced management and officials from the Labour Ministry to concede to a <a href="https://manassa.news/en/news/27111">package of demands</a> after an infant died in her mother’s arms inside the factory. 
Workers said the mother—just ten days back from maternity leave—was blocked from leaving for emergency care because of punitive leave rules and a cost-of-living allowance clawback that effectively trapped her at work. Security forces ringed the free-zone compound, two workers were briefly detained, and management tried a “cool-off” lockout by sending everyone home. It backfired. Workers returned en masse to continue the strike, elected negotiators, and won commitments on an investigation, compensation and changes to pay and leave practices. By 15 September, production resumed following management’s written pledge to address demands.
The same week, <a href="https://revsoc.me/-50409">a wave</a> of labour unrest across upper Egypt’s sugar industry—Edfu, Kom Ombo, Armant and Dishna—subsided after weeks of stoppages over pay, arrears, hazard allowances, overtime and the non-application of state-announced minimum wage measures. Envoys from the regime-run General Federation of Trade Unions and local officials descended on plants, <a href="https://www.madamasr.com/2025/09/14/news/u/%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%B3%D9%83%D8%B1-%D8%A5%D8%AF%D9%81%D9%88-%D9%88%D9%83%D9%88%D9%85-%D8%A5%D9%85%D8%A8%D9%88-%D9%8A%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%82%D9%88%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B6%D8%B1/">promising</a> October raises and a review “at the highest levels”. Some groups ended strikes under pressure, including threats of dismissal and state security referrals; others suspended action with explicit warnings they’ll down tools again in January at the start of the production season if promises aren’t honoured.
Read together, these two episodes show how shopfloor bargaining in 2025 is actually happening in Egypt: a combustible mix of desperation-driven action, security containment and last-minute fixes that arrive only after escalation. Even under today’s repression, strikes still force the state–capital nexus to bargain—grudgingly, temporarily, and case-by-case.
A slow, stubborn uptick
Granular national strike statistics are deliberately hard to come by, but we have credible signals from 2024-25 that collective action is ticking up despite the climate of fear.
The year 2024 saw a <a href="https://revsoc.me/workers-farmers/49598/">broad rise</a> in labour complaints and protest events, dominated by wage and minimum-wage issues amid currency collapse and runaway prices. Employers in both public and private sectors used exemptions and procedural loopholes to dodge mandated increases. Workers responded with petitions, stoppages, and plant-gate rallies that triggered targeted arrests, firings, and prosecutions.
Throughout 2025, according to my labour sources, the country has witnessed more than 70 strikes and protests spanning textiles, ceramics, sugar mills, retail, petroleum, chemicals, utilities, and education. Workers’ demands have centred on overdue wages, annual bonuses, enforcement of the minimum wage, and improved conditions, with large-scale actions including a 4,000-strong strike at Ceramica Inova and coordinated stoppages across Upper Egypt’s sugar industry. Employers and authorities frequently responded with repression—including arrests of T&amp;C and greenhouse workers, suspensions and investigations at El-Shorbagy, and dismissals of union leaders—while others sought to defuse unrest through Ministry of Labour-led mediation or emergency fund payouts.
This isn’t a <a href="https://merip.org/2007/05/strikes-in-egypt-spread-from-center-of-gravity/">2006-style explosion</a>. It’s an incremental curve—a rise in frequency and breadth from the post-2013 nadir, expressed as short, defensive, economic strikes that are extremely sensitive to local triggers (a fatal accident, unpaid arrears, a humiliating rule). Workers are calculating, not reckless: they end strikes when repression bites or when tangible wins are secured; they hold their fire until leverage peaks (e.g., the January sugar campaign season).
Why is it happening? Inflation, repeated devaluation cycles, and a wage floor that is either eroded by prices or not applied at all. Put bluntly, the cost of living has crossed the threshold at which fear of the police competes with fear of hunger. That’s the inflexion point at which Egyptian workers historically move from complaint letters to stoppages.
What the strikes tell us about the regime’s playbook
Policing first, bargaining later: plants are surrounded, entrances controlled, and small numbers are picked up early to chill momentum. Only when production halts and workers hold their ground do mediators appear—labour directorates, federation officials, MPs and governors.
Procedural fixes, not structural change: The “solutions” offered are narrowly tailored: suspend one manager, promise an investigation, pay a tranche of arrears, float a month-X raise. No change to the underlying enforcement vacuum on wages and safety, and no recognition of independent organising.
Time-buying. The favourite tactic is to defer: “October”, “three months”, “after the presidency’s review”, “at budget time”. That punt only works if workers disband, and in the sugar case, they explicitly set January as a hard deadline.
Free zones, not free unions: the Nile Linen case underlines how “export zones” pair hyper-discipline (leave rules, docked allowances, gate control) with weak inspection and security gatekeeping. It’s the quintessential model of privatised coercion under public cover.
Under the surface, though, the state’s posture betrays anxiety. When local stoppages reverberate—through national supply chains (sugar) or foreign-currency exports (textiles)—the case files travel “up”. That upward escalation is the workers’ leverage.
Labour lit the fuse in 2011
Egypt’s modern labour insurgency didn’t begin in Tahrir. It was forged on the shop floors of <a href="https://merip.org/2007/03/egyptian-textile-workers-confront-the-new-economic-order/">Mahalla</a> and across transport, civil servants and public services in the mid-2000s. Those strikes disoriented the state’s forces, birthed strike committees and then independent unions—most famously the <a href="https://flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/albums/72157607027521066/">real estate tax collectors’ union</a>—years before the revolution began on 25 January 2011.
When the 2011 uprising peaked, wildcat strikes in transport, textiles, steel and the public sector on 8-10 February <a href="https://arabawy.org/24959/permanent-revolution/">were decisive</a>. They took the revolution from square to system: from spectacle to shutdown. Within months, new federations and dozens of independent unions proliferated. For the first time in decades, Egyptian workers could credibly bargain outside the state’s official federation.
The revolution’s <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bread-freedom-social-justice-9781780324333/">social soul</a> was not a romantic abstraction; it was the organised power of workers to halt production. That force helped topple a president and briefly opened a window in which wages rose, corrupt managers were purged, and shopfloor dignity was renegotiated.
After the coup—how it was crushed
The 2013 military takeover set out to extinguish politics by decapitating the networks most capable of paralysing the state: political parties, youth groups, community organisations, and independent unions (including informal labour networks) inside workplaces.
Legal crackdown: protest and public-order laws criminalised assembly; the 2017 trade-union framework forced re-registration under state terms, starved or dissolved independents and restored de facto monopoly to the official federation, now coupled with <a href="https://eipr.orghttps://cms.redflag.org.au/sites/default/files/reports/pdf/a_lopsided_law_1.pdf">draconian restrictions on the right to strike</a>.
Security filtration: factory union committees were either purged or co-opted. Activists were harassed; labour leaders faced case-by-case <a href="https://revsoc.me/-50223">prosecutions</a> for “obstructing production” or “inciting”.
Managerial impunity: plant bosses learned that police would enforce internal discipline, from gate control to forced leave to lockouts dressed up as “maintenance”.
Wage theater: headline “minimum-wage” decrees and presidential “allowances” became PR covers, unevenly applied, easily dodged through exemptions or hollow claims on “inability to comply”.
The result was not a pacified labour force so much as a frozen one. From roughly 2014 to 2020, strikes became rare, brief and isolated. People still suffered; they just suffered silently. The state proved it could jail thousands, kill by example, and make union legalism a dead end.
Then prices did what police could not: they melted the freeze. The pandemic’s aftershocks, global food and energy spikes, and repeated devaluations pulled the last nails from household budgets. By 2022-25, the “no strike” equilibrium had eroded, not because repression eased, but because survival left no slack.
Where the movement stands now
This is not 2006-11 redux. Today’s labour fights are defensive and economic—not overtly political—focused on arrears, allowances, safety, childcare, meal stipends, shifts, and even the right to reach a hospital when a child is dying. They are short-cycle and local, measured in days rather than months unless the state stonewalls. They are also networked yet atomised: WhatsApp groups, ex-unionists and NGO veterans still share tactics and draft demands, but no national coordination with real teeth exists.
The risks are also clear: targeted arrests, mass firings, “disciplinary” dockings that erase the very raises you just won, and blacklist-style threats inside free zones. That’s why many stoppages end not in victory but with a warning and a date to resume if management backslides.
Sceptics will say that a few concessions here and there change nothing. They’re wrong. In Egypt’s current political economy, every shopfloor win—whether restored hazard pay, scrapped punitive leave rules, back pay for overtime, or a posted safety notice—has cumulative effects. Each gain raises the reservation wage, as even modest improvements, once normalised, set baselines that other plants imitate. They also expand the repertoire: once a plant has struck and survived, the next stoppage is less daunting and better organised. Most importantly, such victories rebuild confidence, the rarest resource under repression, built incrementally not through manifestos.
This is countercyclical politics from below. While elite pacts revolve around asset sales, debt service and foreign backing, workers are quietly renegotiating the daily reproduction of labour. It is not glamorous, but it is how movements survive long winters.
The state dilemma
Egypt’s rulers face a structural contradiction they cannot ideologically resolve. They need exports and domestic production to secure foreign currency and sustain patronage. They need docile labour to offer investors predictable costs and avoid disruptive headlines. At the same time, they need public credibility that “the state cares” even as real incomes collapse.
They can’t have all three. When prices surge faster than wages, labour unrest becomes a cost of doing business. The regime compensates with selective coercion (to deter organisation) and transactional concessions (to keep assembly lines moving). That’s precisely what the September strikes showed.
The longer arc
Egypt’s labour movement ignited the 2011 revolution’s decisive phase by translating street protest into stoppage power. The counter-revolution understood this perfectly and built a system designed to defang workers: re-monopolise representation, criminalise assembly, make managers de facto police, and flood the airwaves with a cult of “order”.
For a while, it worked. But no authoritarian model can repeal arithmetic. When the grocery bill doubles while allowances vanish, plants don’t stay quiet forever. What we’re witnessing now is not a return to the old days—there is no national wave, no open federation, no safe civic space. It is a learning process under extreme constraints. Workers are rediscovering what they already knew: if you don’t stop the machine, nothing changes.
September’s strikes didn’t rewrite the system. They did something more important for the long haul: they showed thousands of workers, again, that the machine still stops when they decide it will.
That’s the line that matters in 2025. Not the fantasy that one grand strike will topple a militarised political economy, but the reality that incremental, repeatable, local wins—backed by credible threats to escalate when promises fail—are rebuilding the only power that ever made Egypt’s rulers blink.
The question for 2026 is not whether Cairo will suddenly allow free unions. It won’t. The question is whether, plant by plant, shift by shift, workers continue converting unbearable living conditions into precision strikes that win real money, real safety, and real dignity, and whether those informal networks begin talking to one another again. If they do, the regime will face a familiar headache: a labour movement that doesn’t need permission to breathe.
The Egyptian labor movement is alive, conservative in tactics, brutalized by context, and—because of the economy—becoming unavoidable again. The state can’t crush prices. That’s why it won’t crush strikes forever.
Most importantly, such victories rebuild confidence, the rarest resource under repression, built incrementally rather than through manifestos.
First published by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.

Hossam el-Hamalawy

Egypt’s workers stir again

The Palestinian cause has been the major politicising factor for generations of Egyptian youth. Solidarity acts with the Palestinians inevitably develop into anti-regime dissent. History is full of examples.
The 1967 military defeat in front of Israel revived local dissent in Egypt. Student protests in February and November 1968 soon developed into a full-fledged <a href="https://www.theleftberlin.com/the-rise-and-fall-and-rise-and-fall-of-the-egyptian-left-part-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">social movement</a>, spearheaded by “Supporters of Palestinian Revolution” societies on university campuses. It reached its climax with a national revolt against the late president, Anwar Sadat in <a href="https://arabawy.org/111742/1977/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">January 1977</a>, which was dubbed the Bread Uprising.
The outbreak of the <a href="https://revsoc.me/publications/20757/5-%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B6%D8%A9-1987-%D9%88%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B9%D9%87%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B7%D9%82%D8%A9/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">first Palestinian intifada in 1987</a> created a shockwave across Egyptian university campuses and among the professional syndicates. News of the Palestinian resistance was censored in state-run media by then President Hosni Mubarak’s infamous information minister Safwat el-Sherif, so as not to stir people to action.
Mubarak launched his “war on terror” in 1992, and dissent in Egypt was almost completely crushed. While the declared goal was fighting militant groups such as the Islamic Jihad and Gama’a Islamiyya, in effect Mubarak squashed all shades of dissent, controlled the professional syndicates, and tightened the state of emergency. Throughout the 1990s, industrial actions plummeted and student activism was under siege.
Yet, once again, the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada in 2000 proved to be a turning point. With the <a href="https://roarmag.org/essays/egyptian-revolution-visualizing-dissent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visuals of popular resistance</a> broadcast to Egyptian households through satellite TV stations such as Al-Jazeera, street dissent was revived once again. Mobilisations in solidarity with the Palestinian intifada and later against the war in Iraq created the political margin the opposition needed to launch the anti-Mubarak movement Kefaya in <a href="https://flickr.com/photos/elhamalawy/albums/72157594373401893" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">2004</a>. From then on, anti-Mubarak activism electrified the country, encouraged the revival of the labour movement, and developed a strong social movement which led to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/02/egypt-revolution-mubarak-wall-of-fear" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">January 2011 revolution</a>.
Arab regimes have always spoken in favour of the Palestinian struggle, but in reality, they did their best to contain it, dismantle it, or wipe it out completely. The Palestinian resistance in their eyes is a source of instability to say the least. It is regarded with suspicion as a potential trigger for a regional war or a role model that could be copied by the oppressed masses in the region.
After the 1973 War, then President Anwar Sadat shifted to the US camp, and went on to sign a peace treaty with Israel before he was <a href="https://arabawy.org/35156/6-october-1981-the-day-a-dictator-was-killed/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">assassinated</a>. Cairo’s regional role was reduced to simply being an enabler of Pax Americana. Sadat, and later Mubarak were tasked with ensuring stability in accordance with US interests, protecting Israel, overseeing the flow of oil to the West, and the security of the Suez Canal.
This also meant Cairo was to play a mediator role between Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states, toward reaching some final settlement. But this did not mean the Egyptian regime was a “neutral” actor, especially after Hamas took control of the Gaza strip in 2007. Mubarak pressured the Palestinian resistance groups into de-escalating or accepting political compromises. He collaborated with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority against Hamas, and used the Rafah Crossing, Gaza’s only artery of life that is not under Tel Aviv’s control, as a bargaining chip.
Following the 2013 coup, Egypt imposed a siege on Gaza by frequently closing the Rafah crossing. Emphasising the shared roots of Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the media propagated conspiracy theories accusing Hamas of involvement in terror attacks against Egyptian soldiers and civilians.
During the <a href="https://www.newarab.com/opinion/why-sisi-fears-gaza">2014 war</a>, Egypt actively collaborated with Israel in an attempt to eradicate Hamas and enforce punitive measures on the entire Gazan population. The counterrevolutionary regime that was evolving simply was exerting revenge and taking an aggressive stance against any causes championed by the revolutionaries from the 2011 uprising.
By 2017, Sisi’s regime slowly became more tolerant of Hamas. The latter proved resilient and continued to rule Gaza with substantial public support. Sisi also needed its help in securing the border, from which Hamas’s Salafi enemies were crossing into Sinai to take part in an <a href="https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/the-egyptian-armys-counterinsurgency-history-past-operations-and-the-sinai-campaign/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Islamist insurgency</a> that left the Egyptian military battered.
The Cairo-Hamas rapprochement efforts involved a partial easing of the blockade, the opening of the Rafah Crossing, and a series of back-and-forth visits and meetings with the leaders of the resistance, all aimed at negotiating a prolonged ceasefire with Israel. Despite these measures, the humanitarian conditions in the strip did not witness significant improvement. Egypt’s foreign policy continued to rely on the guidelines set by the US, which were becoming increasingly extreme during the Trump administration.
The election of Joe Biden was to have a profound impact on how Sisi handled Hamas. Before taking office, Biden had pledged to hold “Trump’s favourite dictator” accountable. However, the eruption of the 2021 Gaza conflict provided an opportunity for Sisi to portray himself as a credible “mediator,” capable of exerting influence on Hamas while ensuring Israel’s security. Utilising Egypt’s General Intelligence Service (GIS), he successfully mediated a ceasefire, earning praise from the Biden administration.
Since then, Cairo has reverted to its traditional role, a position it has held since Mubarak’s era. The GIS focuses on securing de-escalation and ceasefires whenever tensions arise between Israel and Palestinian resistance groups, consequently bolstering its political influence with Washington and Western capitals.
During the ongoing conflict, Sisi has found himself under pressure from all sides. He is positioning himself before global leaders, some of whom have recently criticised his human rights track record, as a trustworthy intermediary committed to de-escalation efforts. Simultaneously, he harbours concerns about a possible humanitarian crisis that could lead to the displacement of Palestinian refugees to the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/feab5a29-a10a-4d6c-9035-ece2546c12a3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sinai</a>.
But even more critically, for him, is the fear of the domino effect. Thousands of Al-Ahly football fans thundered pro-Palestinian chants in a stadium in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02cV3UG4OQA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alexandria</a>. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RevSoc.me/videos/1034922087640426/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Journalists</a> gathered in downtown Cairo, in front of their syndicate, to demonstrate and burn Israeli flags. Hundreds of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RevSoc.me/videos/698383442349721/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lawyers</a> followed suit. The <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Elmehan.Eltamthelya/posts/pfbid0cWwUJSQWak3fvEqQ68CEQJaSf8RvBtQZ4DDRRHinz4pGwioTBcERtRk9WKQ6e8HYl" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Actors Guild</a> announced a similar call for protest. Students at the American University in Cairo organised a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RevSoc.me/videos/973217737095058/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">strong march</a> on campus. In other universities, students are organising relief and blood donations. The biggest protest was held at the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RevSoc.me/videos/1414308486158494/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Al-Azhar Mosque</a>, following the Friday Prayer. Demonstrators chanted for Palestine and tried to take to the streets before they were dispersed by the police. Similar protests were reported in Giza and elsewhere.
A <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/50689/egypt-a-decade-of-counter-revolution" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">decade</a> after Sisi completely squashed dissent, these mobilisations are significant.
Amid <a href="https://apnews.com/article/egypt-economic-crisis-inflation-russia-ukraine-war-0bf22bb11d5b7fe2060eac52279b9df3" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">worsening living conditions</a> and an economic crisis, Sisi’s <a href="https://almanassa.com/stories/9789" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">popularity</a> has reached its lowest point. He is now on the verge of a presidential election scheduled for the next two months, and his victory seems assured due to the elimination of any strong competitors and the backing of state institutions. Nevertheless, the nation, even after quelling and suppressing organised opposition, remains a potential flashpoint that could erupt spontaneously.
The situation in Palestine could serve as one catalyst, as it did in the previous decades.
First published at <a href="https://africasacountry.com/2023/10/egypt-and-the-war-in-palestine">Africa Is a Country</a>.

Egypt’s workers stir again

Egypt and the war in Palestine

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