Al-Bawaba News sit-in: Silence is no longer an option

In what appears to be the longest sit-in by journalists in years, reporters at Al-Bawaba News have been occupying their newsroom for a full month. They have been sleeping on the cold floor, in a bid to pressure board chairman Abdelrahim Ali—known for his closeness to the current regime—into enforcing the 7,000 pounds minimum wage approved by the head of state himself.

During a solidarity visit to the newsroom, I witnessed a full-fledged labor sit-in: demands written on cardboard and taped to walls, blankets stacked nearby, tea and coffee supplies. In a clear division of roles, some drafted statements, others handled negotiations.

A banner on the wall read: “Since 2018, we’ve been on a 2,000-pound salary.”

Journalist Mohamed Khamis, one of the sit-in participants, posted on Facebook: “Management bet we wouldn’t be able to get it together, counting on fear, disunity, and accusations of betrayal.” But they were dead wrong.

The journalists set up shifts for the sit-in and overnight stay. Management succeeded in pulling away some colleagues, but the core group held.

Among the 80 still inside, frustration had not taken hold. One colleague promised to make stuffed vegetables once the sit-in ends, while another joked that he hoped management would meet their demands before Jan. 18 because he had a flight and didn’t want to miss.

A decade of anti-union policies failed to uproot the instinct to organize. The journalists elected a seven-member committee, headed by Ahmed Fares, to negotiate on their behalf.

A message from Paris

On the other side, Abdelrahim Ali, the newspaper’s owner and a former member of parliament, still appears insulated by a system that disciplines anyone who demands their rights.

Powerful figures have protected him before. Years ago, on his TV show “The Black Box” on Al-Nahar, Ali boasted of publishing what he said were audio recordings of opposition figures. It was hardly surprising, then, that on Dec. 17 he posted praising Youssef Chahine’s film “Cairo Station,” zeroing in on Qinawi—the troubled newspaper vendor who gets dragged to the mental asylum for dreaming of marrying the alluring Hanouma. Ali added that the scene recalled “many fools in our lives, marching down the same path, unaware they'd end up wearing the straitjacket, mistaking it for the jubilation galabiya.”

Ali made a point that he was posting from Paris—at exactly 5 pm Cairo time. That detail infuriated the protesting journalists. On Dec. 15 , they had staged a protest on the steps on the Journalists Syndicate at exactly 5 pm.

Journalists Syndicate head Khaled Elbalshy responded with a Facebook post, in which he referenced efforts to resolve the crisis “before the landslide that engulfed us (at 5 pm Cairo time).”

Ali’s palpable agitation betrayed how deeply the sit-in has rattled him—how the journalists’ steely resolve, and their mantra of the pen trumping the sword, galls him amid management’s endless roadblocks.

A similar sit-in took place at Al-Wafd newspaper in October, also demanding minimum wage. It was led by an experienced, combative union committee headed by Mohamed Adel. The sit-in lasted six days and achieved its goals, opening the door for the Al-Bawaba News protest.

Al-Bawaba newsroom is located in the upscale Dokki district. Social media has turned the sit-in into a neighborhood spectacle, drawing attention from residents and shop workers. Some have expressed sympathy.

Journalist Mohamed Nabil posted on Facebook describing that solidarity: “Thanks to our neighbors on Mossadak Street. As soon as they learned management cuts the internet on the sit-in participants from midnight until 8 am, they shared their WiFi.”

He added that neighbors were stunned to learn that workers earn 2,000 and 2,500 pounds ($40–50), and that the sit-in was simply to demand the minimum wage—7,000 pounds ($140).

The scene reminds of the solidarity on Hussein Hegazy Street showed to property-tax employees during their 10-day sit-in in 2007. As it ended, the employees chanted greeting the neighbors.

Self Management

In a striking development, Al-Bawaba journalists are now seriously considering taking over the management of the newspaper. They say the owner is dodging his obligations while threatening liquidation and closure, and has even withheld November’s salary.

Staff argue the newspaper is effectively theirs. “We trust what we’re doing will be a turning point in how journalists relate to their work, their value, and their right to a workplace that protects their dignity before their pen. No right is lost when someone demands it. The sit-in continues until justice becomes reality, not rhetoric,” they said in a statement.

Khamis echoed the sentiment in his own post. “This place can’t be torn down. This is our home,” he wrote.

In practice, worker management would mean journalists and staff making decisions on production, editorial policy, and wages, instead of the usual top-down hierarchy. It could deepen internal democracy, but in a reality hostile to salaried workers, the challenges are daunting: legal hurdles, security pressure, smear campaigns, financing complications, and internal divisions.

Still, journalists are not less capable than factory workers. Their knowledge and networks could help them craft a realistic plan—and, at minimum, turn the idea into real leverage against management.

There are precedents. In the early 2000s, workers at a lightbulb factory in 10th of Ramadan City offered an early model of self-management, securing a decision from the public prosecutor to appoint a trustee and run the company themselves after the owner disappeared and management tried to force them out and shut it down.

Other attempts followed—at Amonsito, the International Company for Paper Products and Packaging Materials (Incopapp), and partially at Tanta Flax.

For journalists, the path is clearly littered with obstacles. But it is not unthinkable.

The return of the union’s backbone

Throughout the long sit-in, protesters have turned to Journalists Syndicate head Khaled Elbalshy and the syndicate’s board to discuss escalation and the proposals presented by the institution’s owner.

This is not the Journalists Syndicate long known as a club for editors-in-chief and board members. Elbalshy has reoriented the syndicate’s priorities, placing it behind journalists protesting deteriorating economic and social conditions.

That shift appears related to the sobering results of a survey prepared by the Sixth General Conference of the Journalists Syndicate in December 2024. It found that more than half of news organizations (51.8%) had no clear pay scale; 50.5% did not apply the minimum wage, while only 29.9% applied it fully.

The same survey showed that 13% of journalists receive no salary, 7% earn less than 1,000 pounds ($20), and 19% earn less than 3,000 pounds ($60). An overwhelming 88.4% expressed clear dissatisfaction with how newsroom leadership is selected.

It also found that roughly half of journalists rely primarily on the training and technology allowance, a stipend, disbursed via the syndicate from state budgets to journalists since the 1980s as support for a public service.

Elbalshy said the survey amounted to the most dangerous message journalists have sent about freedoms and wages, adding that “Journalists have issued a clear cry, and it must be answered.”

But if the syndicate is to play a serious role in the struggle for livelihood and freedom, its board must revoke the membership of owners and shareholders like Abdelrahim Ali, hold editors-in-chief accountable for trampling reporters’ rights, and deepen the syndicate’s independence from the state.

Feigning ignorance

Till now, the same authoritarian neoliberalism rolls on. It exerts no pressure on Abdelrahim Ali. It does not intervene to support Al-Bawaba News journalists asking only for a bare minimum. It also ignored El-Fagr, which stopped printing months ago.

The state continues to refuse to appoint around 200 temporary journalists who have worked for years at state-owned institutions under coercive conditions. Last year, it also cut the annual increase in the training allowance in half—punishment, for journalists daring to defeat the state’s preferred candidate for syndicate head, Abdel Mohsen Salama, in the last election.

The state and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation have largely ignored journalists’ protests. That fits a broader policy that turns journalism into a silent graveyard—one where journalists spend their lives in poverty and under repression.

But unchecked power breeds escalation. Regime-linked business figures and others push conflicts further, as Abdelrahim Ali has done by brushing aside mediation.

What began as an everyday struggle to apply the minimum wage has gradually widened into a confrontation with the syndicate’s board and the broader journalistic community. No one can predict what comes next, particularly as the sit-in enters its second month.

One thing is certain: the minimum wage is not a dream, but a right.