More than 2,000 workers at the Aluminum Co. of Egypt (Egyptalum) in Nag Hammadi continued a strike for a second day, stopping work and staging a sit-in inside the company’s premises to demand permanent hiring and higher wages they described as “low.”
The walkout has cut the company’s output by about 70%, one of the striking workers told Al Manassa, raising fresh pressure in a long-running dispute over temporary contracts, pay and benefits at one of Egypt’s flagship industrial firms.
The worker, who asked that his name not be published, said furnaces have nearly stopped drawing metal, prompting permanent workers to step in and feed them “the powder used for burning” to prevent damage and avoid complex maintenance and high costs that could result from shutting them down completely.
Workers spent the night inside the company, and appeared in videos reviewed by Al Manassa organizing marches through the facility and chanting for permanent contracts and improved financial rights.
On the workers’ legal status, a second worker said they are employed on temporary contracts through labor-supply firms, most prominently a company called Hamis, with average wages of just 2,500 Egyptian pounds ($53), even though they graduated from the company’s own training center and its aluminum technical industrial institute.
The worker, who also asked that his name not be published, said Egyptalum’s management directed them to sign up with the labor-supply companies as a “temporary phase” ahead of permanent hiring, which has not happened for years.
A third worker complained to Al Manassa that they are denied any insurance benefits. “If you get sick, you go to the doctor and get treated out of your own pocket. Even work injuries, they don’t recognize. If someone gets hurt, they get tossed aside like a dog,” he said, adding that a colleague, an engineer, lost a foot in an accident and the company abandoned him and paid no compensation despite the injury happening at the worksite.
“Management offered us a 1,000-pound raise ($21) to end the strike, but we rejected it and we’re sticking to our demands,” the worker said.
The strike follows a series of labor protests at the company. In October 2024, workers launched a similar strike to demand higher profit shares and allowances and the hiring of temporary staff. Workers later suspended that strike after officials at the Public Business Sector Ministry promised to meet their demands, but they renewed their walkout the following year with the same demands.
Work to set up Egyptalum in Nag Hammadi began in 1969, production started in 1975, and the company reached five production lines in July 1983. In 2010, it completed rehabilitation and upgrades of all lines, lifting maximum capacity to 320,000 tons a year.
