Workers at Samanoud Textiles in Gharbiya governorate began an all-out strike on Monday over delayed payment of last month’s wages and the suspension of health insurance services since the start of this year, two female workers told Al Manassa.
The walkout marks a renewed escalation after management promised, following the company’s March 11 strike, to pay wages on time and restore health insurance coverage. Workers say neither happened, leaving hundreds without regular pay or medical care.
The first worker, who asked not to be named, said management failed to keep its promises. “As of today, March’s salary still hasn’t been paid, and it looks like the company will keep delaying wages,” she said.
Workers at Samanoud Textiles have complained of irregular wages for about 10 months, receiving each month’s salary in installments, while health insurance services have been suspended for about four months.
More than 600 workers, most of them women, have been deprived of medical services for four months, after their monthly medication was fully cut off because of debts the company owes to the General Authority for Social Insurance, despite regular insurance deductions from workers’ wages, workers previously told Al Manassa.
A second worker, who also asked not to be named, said textile department workers rejected a management offer on Monday to end the strike in exchange for paying 50% of March wages to textile workers only, with the rest of the company’s workers to be paid two days later and the remainder of wages for all workers next week. Textile workers insisted on full payment in a single installment for everyone and a solution to the health insurance crisis, she said.
She said management had told them wages would be paid early this month “so we could cover our obligations, apartment rent, electricity, water and gas bills, installments and school expenses, but management insists on humiliating us as if we’re begging.”
She said the suspension of health insurance services has placed an extra burden on workers that they cannot bear and is one of the main reasons the protests have resumed, alongside the wage delays.
On March 11, workers in the company’s garment department staged protests, including demonstrations and a partial strike, demanding an end to the situation.
Those protests later grew into a strike involving all workers, which ended on March 18 after they received their full February salary and management promised regular wage payments and the return of health insurance services. That did not happen, the first worker said, adding, “Last month we didn’t get the rest of February’s salary until 24 hours before Eid. We couldn’t buy our children clothes like everyone else or buy anything for the holiday.”
The same worker said management claims the company is facing a financial crisis because clients are not paying for contract manufacturing. Even so, she said, the company continues to receive raw materials from clients and deliver finished products without interruption.
She explained that “the company is currently manufacturing for others, receiving cotton from clients and delivering clothes and fabrics for them to place their own brand labels on, in exchange for a production fee.”
The Center for Trade Union and Workers Services said on Facebook on Monday that the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, which owns about 52% of the company, must intervene urgently and is legally bound to protect workers’ rights, especially access to treatment and health care.
The center accused the company of shirking its responsibilities, saying management had previously told workers to go to police stations, which it described as the relevant parties abandoning their duties and leaving workers to face their fate alone.
The latest protest follows earlier labor disputes at the company. In April 2025, management applied the minimum wage only to administrative staff and section supervisors, angering workers before it later extended the measure to all employees, though allowances and overtime were counted as part of the minimum wage, according to workers who spoke to Al Manassa at the time.
On Aug. 18 last year, Samanoud Textiles workers went on strike for 35 days to demand implementation of the minimum wage, before ending the action under threats of dismissal and imprisonment.
On Aug. 25, 10 workers, including labor leader Hesham El-Banna, were arrested and accused by prosecutors of “inciting a strike, unlawful assembly, and attempting to overthrow the regime.” On Aug. 28, prosecutors ordered their detention for 15 days. They were subsequently released, while El-Banna was later arbitrarily dismissed.
