Workers at two major textile factories in Alexandria are protesting suspended healthcare coverage and manipulated wages, highlighting the toll of financial mismanagement on labor rights.
At UNIRAB Polvara Spinning & Weaving, 1,200 workers lost access to health insurance services after the National Social Insurance Authority suspended health treatment due to unpaid contributions exceeding 158 million Egyptian pounds.
Among those affected are cancer patients and workers with chronic illnesses, according to informed sources who spoke with Al Manassa, including head of the union committee at the company, Adel Saad Muharram.
“We can’t afford our medication,” one worker who paid 1,200 pounds out-of-pocket for hepatitis treatment told Al Manassa. The suspension became clear when a worker with a fractured pelvis was denied care at a public hospital.
The company has not transferred workers’ insurance deductions since 2018, blaming ongoing legal disputes over land assets, Muharram explained. “This is punishment for a crime workers did not commit,” he added, revealing that deductions also continue to be taken from wages despite the coverage suspension.
The union has filed complaints with the health ministry and other government bodies, and arranged limited in-house care: a company doctor now visits three days a week.
Once employing more than 10,000, the partially privatized UNIRAB Polvara now has just 1,200 workers. Muharram attributed its decline to what he called “massive corruption,” saying company land was sold for a fraction of its value.
Wages folding
At Misr El-Amreya Spinning & Weaving Co., workers are demanding retroactive overtime pay based on full—not basic—wages, two workers told Al Manassa. In July, they had launched a 16-day strike calling for fair pay, removal of the CEO, and recognition of their job grades.
“They folded our overtime into the minimum wage,” one worker revealed to Al Manassa. “Our wages looked higher, but we didn’t earn more.”
The strike forced the resignation of CEO Ahmed Amr Ragab and secured partial gains, including a monthly 200-pound increase in shift allowances, and recalculated overtime. The Alexandria labor bureau directed a memo requiring the company’s management to issue retroactive pay from March to July. Later, payments for August and September followed, confirmed Mohamed El-Sawy, head of the union committee at the company, to Al Manassa.
But workers say core demands remain unmet: some are owed up to two years in back pay, bonuses are delayed, and consultants continue to earn disproportionately high salaries.
In turn, El-Sawy submitted a memo requesting the remaining overtime be paid in installments. Labor Bureau officials have backed the workers’ claims and ordered the company to calculate future overtime based on total—not minimum—wages, according to an official statement previously acquired by Al Manassa.
As grievances pile up, Alexandria’s textile workers are pushing back against what they describe as a system that withholds not just their earnings, but their rights. “It makes no sense, nor is it lawful,” as UNIRAB Polvara’s Muharram remarked, “to deny them their right to medical treatment under any circumstances.”
