Authorities arrest 26 workers as thousands strike for fair pay at supplier for international brands

Mada

28-01-2025

Authorities in Egypt arrested 26 people on Saturday who work for the east Cairo factories of T&C Garments, a Turkish-Egyptian clothing manufacturer that supplies goods to global brands including Levis, UNIQLO and Tommy Hilfiger.
Around 6,000 employees at T&C Garments' Obour City complex began a strike for fairer wages at the beginning of the year.
As the cost of living increases, they demand that the company increase bonuses, commissions and meal allowances for workers, who currently take home less than minimum wage per month.
Four workers at the T&C Garments factory told Mada Masr on condition of anonymity that security forces arrested 26 of their colleagues from their homes over the weekend.
Among those arrested was Ahmed Hassan Abdel Aziz from the Zawamel village in the Sharqiya Governorate, according to one of the company employees from the same village, who described authorities arresting his colleague from his home on Saturday evening.
A larger group of police and Central Security Forces personnel is now stationed outside the factory premises in the Industrial Zone at Obour City, the sources said.
Only workers from the packing, laundry and cutting departments were admitted to the premises for Sunday's shift at the company, which suspended daily transport into the industrial zone for night shift workers as soon as the strike began and did the same for morning shift workers in most departments shortly afterward.
When workers arrived at the factory on Sunday, they gathered in the yard in front of the administration office, where they declared they would continue their strike until their demands were met. 'The company is trying to divide us to break the strike,' one worker told Mada Masr.
T&C's executive manager presented an offer to the workers on Sunday, another laborer said. 'They offered us a 17 percent bonus increase, which we rejected. We want 50 percent.'
The thousands of factory workers launched their strike on January 16, demanding a 50 percent increase in their annual bonus to cope with rising living costs, a raise in meal allowances from LE600 to LE1,200, an implementation of the minimum wage, permission for discretionary leave and paid public holidays, in accordance with the labor law.
Workers at the company currently take home between LE4,000 and LE5,000 per month, substantially below the minimum wage for the private sector, which is set at LE6,000.
Bonuses, which the laborers expected to receive in the third week of January, are also yet to be paid out, one worker said.
They are also demanding that the company improve its on-site health clinic, which is poorly equipped and offers little more than painkillers, they say.
Workers who fall ill or are injured on the job must seek treatment outside the company at their own expense, and if they have to take leave for health reasons, they are only paid a quarter of their daily wage, workers told Mada Masr last week.
The strike is further calling for the dismissal of HR manager Mohamed Abdel Rahman for insulting workers.
T&C Garments, a partnership between Egypt's Tolba Group and Turkey's Tay Group, manufactures ready-made clothing for well known brands, including Levis, UNIQLO and Tommy Hilfiger.
The factory operates under the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) agreement, a protocol established by the US in 1996 to build economic ties between Israel and its neighbors, which requires that Egyptian products include a 10.5 percent component to enter the US market. The company exports 70 percent of its production to the US and the rest to Europe.