The year of anger: What 100 worker protests in 2025 tell us
A year ago, economists promised that the worst was behind us. Inflation, they told us, would cool after the painful surge that began in 2022. The prices of food, housing, and basic services, which had climbed to unimaginable levels, were finally expected to ease.
Indeed, inflation did begin to fall after the 2024 Ras El-Hekma deal stabilized the value of the dollar. But for millions of working people, nothing significant changed. Carved deep over years of crisis, the gap between wages and the cost of living remained wide and punishing.
Under the pressure of these conditions, workers across Egypt entered 2025 with a renewed determination to defend their wages from inflation and demand the legally mandated minimum wage the government had promised. The first spark was ignited on Jan. 16, when workers at T&C Garments in Obour City took to the streets after learning that even with overtime, their monthly pay still failed to surpass 5,200 Egyptian pounds.
Throughout the year, Al Manassa documented 100 labor protests stretching from Alexandria to Aswan. They were made up of thousands of workers and hundreds of stories, some of which resulted in real gains and others in painful defeats that worsened workers’ suffering. Together, these demonstrations signaled a shift in Egypt’s working class toward participation in a shared struggle.
Industrial workers lead the uprising
The real number of protests was likely higher; however, of the 100 actions recorded in 2025, 28 were full or partial strikes, 64 were rallies and demonstrations, and eight were sit-ins. One tragic incident involved a suicide attempt by a worker at the Kom Ombo Sugar Company in Aswan.
Kamal Abbas of the Center for Trade Union and Workers’ Services observed a clear increase in labor organizing in 2025 from previous years, driven first and foremost by soaring prices impacting everyday life.
Inflation reached historic highs in 2022 and 2023 amid currency volatility and eased only in 2024 before settling around 10% by November 2025—the lowest level since the crisis began. The industrial sector began to pick up as the dollar crisis subsided and the pace of production improved. But workers’ salaries did not reflect this recovery, with the sector witnessing 51 recorded protests throughout the past year.
Similarly, the public utilities sector continued to account for some of the most prominent worker protests over the past year. What began as actions undertaken by temporary workers soon spread to include permanent staff who, despite their job security, still could not cover basic family needs.
Cairo Governorate had the highest number of protests at 38, which is expected for Egypt’s economic capital. What is striking, though, is the protests in Upper Egypt, with the governorates of North and South Upper Egypt witnessing 29 protests during the past year.
We tracked protests at the company level rather than individual worksites; had each site been counted, the total would have exceeded 150. For instance, during the Cairo Drinking Water Company’s 12‑day protest last November, demonstrations spread across 30 different sites.
Minimum wage, the last straw
At the start of 2025, workers were already struggling to secure the previous minimum wage of 6,000 pounds as employers across the country failed to provide legally mandated wages. Then, in February of that year, the National Council for Wages announced yet another increase, to 7,000 pounds in the private sector.
This announcement, in turn, ignited a wave of protests. Roughly 70% of all protests in 2025 focused on the implementation of the law and application of the minimum wage. Workers at Ceramica Innova, Qalyubia Water Company, Samanoud Textiles, Faragalla Foods, the Egyptian Wholesale Company, and Al Ahly Club, as well as journalists at Al-Wafd and Al Bawaba News, were among those advocating for legal wages.
Increases in Egypt’s minimum wage reveal a significant gap between workers’ legally guaranteed pay and what they actually bring home at the end of the month, highlighting a failure to enforce labor laws. Wael Gamal, president of the Economic and Social Justice program of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), told Al Manassa that these violations are not limited to the private sector, but also seen in governmental and state-run institutions, where temporary workers are paid at rates far below the legal minimum wage.
Between 2022 and 2025, the minimum wage rose from 3,000 to 7,000 pounds as the government tried to counter the effects of rapid inflation. But without effective oversight, many employers simply refused to comply. EIPR welcomed the increase but warned that 7,000 pounds ($350) still cannot keep a family above the poverty line.
Gamal argued that the minimum-wage increases gave workers a clear benchmark for understanding inflation and a concrete reference point for demanding fair pay. By establishing an official standard, these decisions helped catalyze worker mobilization, clarifying what wages should look like under current economic conditions.
Yet employers continued to manipulate the system. Misr El Amreya For Spinning and Weaving’s management reclassified allowances under a new “minimum wage supplement” category, neutralizing any real wage increase. Madinaty—a development run by Alexandria Construction Company, which is part of the Talaat Moustafa Group—forced security guards into unpaid overtime and delayed wages for months at a time. Workers at Ceramica Innova and Al Omaraa reported similar violations.
Layoffs, coercion, and administrative abuse
The protests were not only driven by low wages and the failure to implement minimum wage; they were also sparked by a range of other workplace abuses, including mass layoffs. Such layoffs affected workers at ceramic manufacturers Labotee, Al Omaraa, and Ceramica Innova, as well as at the Institute of Aviation Technology, B-laban, and United Pharmacists. In other instances, workers reported being pressured to submit resignations in exchange for settlements that fell short of their legal financial entitlements, including at Embee Garments in Ismailia and at Roya Contracting in Ain Sokhna.
Administrative practices further fueled worker anger. At Innova and the Arab Spinning and Weaving Company in Alexandria, for example, management suspended medical services for thousands of employees after failing to pay required contributions and amassing debts to the National Social Insurance Authority—leaving even cancer patients without care.
The most severe example of administrative abuse occurred at Linen Group for Textiles and Furnishings in Alexandria. A nursing infant died in her mother’s arms after company management refused to grant her leave to take her sick child to hospital. The mother was reportedly detained inside the factory for three hours. The incident triggered a strike involving thousands of workers.
The state’s response
As unrest intensified throughout 2025, the state relied largely on its security agencies to contain it through arrests, detentions, and intimidation aimed at curbing worker mobilization.
In January, security forces arrested 26 of T&C Garments’s workers during a strike. Prosecutors in Obour ordered their detention for four days on charges including “inciting unrest” and “disrupting work” before a local court released them on bail of 2,000 pounds.
In March, police dispersed a sit-in by workers at the National Greenhouse Company, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Defence’s National Service Projects Organization. Thirty-nine workers were arrested, including children, breastfeeding women, and people with disabilities. Prosecutors initially ordered their detention for four days, then renewed the sentence, adding 15 days. The workers were eventually released after 19 days.
In Sohag and Qena, 25 workers at Modern Gas were arrested during a strike in early December. They were released only after an agreement was reached between company management and workers to end the strike, brokered under the supervision of security forces.
Workers at Misr El Amreya for Spinning and Weaving in Alexandria, Samanoud Textiles in Gharbia, and sugar factories in Deshna, Edfu, and Kom Ombo reported being summoned by National Security officers and threatened with imprisonment if they continued protesting. In Aswan, similar warnings continued even after protests had ended, with ten workers at the Edfu Sugar Factory summoned following plans for a new strike over unfulfilled company promises.
Victories and setbacks
Most labor protests failed to secure all the workers’ demands. Labor rights advocate Abbas said that despite the increase in labor action, the movement remained vulnerable to security pressure due to weak workplace-level union organization.
Egypt’s longstanding trade union structure has long been criticized for operating under state influence. Efforts by workers to establish independent unions after the 2011 uprising faced sustained legal and security pressure. A new labor law passed last year, which EIPR described as showing a “clear bias in favor of employers.”
Abbas also cited the weakness of political forces and their focus on formal political issues at the expense of social and economic concerns, leaving workers “largely alone in addressing financial needs and confronting [the government’s] security apparatus.”
Despite this, some protests resulted in tangible gains. At Misr Amreya for Spinning and Weaving, workers forced the resignation of the company’s chief executive after a 13-day strike that included demands for his removal. The new management later agreed to negotiate with workers and revise the method used to calculate the minimum wage, after allegations that it had been manipulated by the previous administration.
At Linen Group, management reached an agreement with workers following their strike, which included compensating the mother of the infant who died, the removal of the manager who denied her leave, and the implementation of long-delayed financial entitlements.
In October, journalists at Al-Wafd newspaper and website reached an agreement with party leadership to implement the minimum wage after a four-day sit-in at party headquarters.
However, the personal cost of organizing remains high. Sameh Ali, who played a key role in organizing the first protest recorded in 2025 at T&C Garments, was terminated after a 14-year career at the company. His wrongful dismissal case is still before the courts, and he has so far been unable to find new work.