Workers at Samanoud Textiles in Gharbiya governorate have refused to end an all-out strike started on Monday in exchange for half their March salaries, while a company security guard assaulted a worker attempting to join a protest, two female workers told Al Manassa.
Employees demand full payment, guarantees against further delays and reinstatement of health insurance, which has been suspended since the start of the year.
On Tuesday, security personnel at the company reportedly tried to block female workers from the garment department heading to the second floor to join protesting colleagues in the company's yard.
A security guard pushed a worker forcefully in the chest, causing her to collapse unconscious, with colleagues rushing her to the Samanoud General Hospital, a female worker who witnessed the incident told Al Manassa, speaking on condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal.
According to a second worker, who also asked not to be named, the guard in question allegedly escaped the scene with the help of colleagues and is “known for mistreating workers, relying on familial ties to the company’s head of security.”
By the end of Monday’s first shift, employees had already received 50% their March pay, but said they would continue the strike until the full salary is paid and regular disbursement is guaranteed, according to one of the workers.
Alongside the reinstatement of health insurance services, workers demanded that management pay a cost-of-living allowance frozen since January and include delayed bonuses in the basic wage.
Some 550 workers are on strike at the company, according to the Center for Trade Union and Workers Services (CTUWS), which reported Tuesday that the crisis escalated after the company’s management told workers who rejected the half-wage offer to “leave,” a move workers saw as a direct threat and an attempt to pressure them into ending the strike.
The Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF) said the situation violates the right to wages, citing Labor Law No. 14/2025 and Egypt’s international obligations to ensure workers are paid in full and on time, adding that it observed a pattern in which management responds only after workers go on strike.
“This has turned wages from a fundamental right into a bargaining tool, deepening tensions and eroding trust between management and employees,” ECRF wrote in a Monday statement published on Facebook.
The workers' escalation on Monday follows the company management’s failure to uphold promises made during a strike in March to ensure regular salary payments and restore health insurance.
Workers previously told Al Manassa that management has, in recent months, routinely delayed salaries and split monthly wages into three installments, undermining workers’ ability to meet their financial obligations.
On March 11, female workers in the garment department staged protests, including demonstrations and a partial strike, demanding an end to these conditions.
The protests later escalated into a company-wide strike that lasted until March 18, ending after workers received their full February salary and were promised regular pay and the return of health insurance, commitments workers say have not been fulfilled.
More than 600 workers, the majority of which are women, have been deprived of medical services for four months, including many suffering from chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and asthma, after their monthly treatments were fully cut off.
Workers previously told Al Manassa that the suspension is due to accumulated debts owed by the company to the Social Insurance Authority despite regular deductions from their salaries, leaving them to shoulder costs beyond their means.
In April 2025, the company applied the minimum wage only to administrative staff and supervisors, sparking anger among workers. Though later extended more broadly, allowances and overtime were counted as part of the minimum wage, according to workers who spoke to Al Manassa at the time.
On August 18 last year, Samanoud Textiles workers launched a strike that lasted 35 days to demand implementation of the minimum wage, before being forced to end it under threats of dismissal and imprisonment.
That same month, 10 workers, including labor leader Hesham El-Banna, were arrested and charged with “inciting strike action, illegal assembly, and attempting to overthrow the regime.” They were later released at different times, while El-Banna was subsequently dismissed from his job.
Established in 1974 as part of Egypt’s state-run textile sector, the company was initially affiliated with Misr Spinning and Weaving in Mahalla and owned by state institutions, before being re-registered under the Investment Law in 2015 as a private-sector company, with the Arab Investment Bank now holding the largest stake.
