Egyptian public sector labor actions have spread further this week amid deepening nationwide wage inequality and punitive crackdowns on labor organizing. In Aswan, a sugar factory worker attempted suicide following a forced relocation alongside escalating strikes by hydropower staff across electricity stations demanding wage justice.
On Wednesday, workers at the High Dam and Aswan 1 and 2 hydropower stations continued a sit-in for a second consecutive day inside the plants, refusing to leave until their demands were met.
The protest, organized by staff at the Hydro Power Plants Company—a subsidiary of the state-run Egyptian Electricity Holding Company—included overnight vigils, chants, and public reading of demands.
Protesters issued a detailed list of demands that included the application of the national minimum wage. Workers also asked for the daily food stipend to be raised to 50 Egyptian pounds, and the lighting allowance to 1,000 pounds monthly, in a statement viewed by Al Manassa.
Other demands included restoring cancelled promotions and bonuses, converting the production incentive into a lump-sum annual profit share equivalent to 24 months’ salary, and distributing the excellence bonus monthly instead of every two months, one worker explained to Al Manassa.
Workers also demanded the company cover health insurance subscription costs, which they currently pay despite not enjoying any of the benefits from Egypt’s Universal Health Insurance program.
One worker told Al Manassa that company executives, union officials, and MP Ali Aba Zeid arrived at the protest site after midnight, urging them to disperse. Workers refused, insisting that promises weren’t enough—demands had to be fulfilled first.
Hydropower workers say wages ranging between 4,500 to 7,000 pounds fall far below the cost of living. A second protester said they had lost long-standing benefits, like remote-area allowances and incentive bonuses, which were scrapped in 2015. “We can’t afford to keep our homes running on these wages. We want a pay scale that reflects both inflation and our labor,” he said.
He added that the company's CEO and deputy representative, Hisham Kamal Mohamed, had insulted and belittled the workers when they refused to end the protest. “He tried to break us, told us we weren’t real men, said we couldn’t do anything—and that if we didn’t like it, we could leave the company.”
One protester, speaking to Al Manassa anonymously on Tuesday, said average monthly wages for hydropower workers stand at just 6,000 Egyptian pounds. “Our colleagues in other power stations earn up to 3,000 pounds more through bonuses and allowances,” he said.
He emphasized that although hydropower stations produce electricity at a fraction of the cost—just 15 piasters per kilowatt-hour compared to 2 pounds at thermal plants—their workers earn significantly less. “We help the state profit with cheap production costs, and yet we’re punished with lower salaries. It doesn’t make sense.”
Across the Nile to the east, a worker at Kom Ombo Sugar Company in Aswan attempted to take his own life Tuesday by jumping from a 35-meter-high boiler tower inside the factory.
This came after he received news of being forcibly transferred to the Hawamdiya Sugar Complex in Giza. His colleagues managed to stop him just in time, two eyewitnesses told Al Manassa.
The transfer order came just one day after the company’s CEO and managing director, Salah Fathy, visited the Kom Ombo site. During that visit, the worker had challenged Fathy about his failure to deliver on promises made during a previous 26-day strike, which began in August and swept through several Upper Egypt sugar plants. The next day, the worker was ordered to relocate to Hawamdiya— around 900 km away from his town and family.
“He couldn't handle the shock of being uprooted. The pressure broke him,” said one of his coworkers, speaking on condition of anonymity. “He felt trapped.”
Another witness said dozens of workers raced up the boiler tower to prevent their colleague from jumping. “This wasn’t just about one comment,” he said. “The transfer was a clear punishment for his role in the strikes. Last month, over 40 temporary workers at the Kom Ombo particle board factory were dismissed for participating.”
Sugar workers across the south were ultimately pressured to end their strikes and demonstrations in October. The Kom Ombo plant was the last to stop after union officials visited the plants and assured staff their demands had reached “the highest levels.”
The unrest is part of a widening wave of labor action across Egypt’s public sector sectors. For 13 days, Cairo water company workers held demonstrations at dozens of sites, demanding retroactive bonuses dating to 2016, a fair wage scale, and the dismissal of company officials accused of corruption.
In October, textile workers of both UNIRAB Polvara Spinning & Weaving and Misr El-Amreya Spinning & Weaving Co. in Alexandria staged protests against wage cuts and a unilateral suspension of health insurance. The following month, 1,200 UNIRAB Polvara workers staged a walkout. In Port Said and Suez, workers at the Canal Company for Mooring & Lights launched a strike in later that month to protest no-warning bonus cuts.
