Workers at Talaat Moustafa’s Alexandria Construction company protest low wages, layoffs

Over a hundred employees at the Alexandria Construction company, one of Talaat Moustafa Group's biggest construction subsidiaries, held a short protest on Wednesday to demand a raise in wages and a halt to a wave of layoffs that has been taking place in recent months.

Several workers at the company who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, for fear of facing retribution, said that management policies over recent years have kept salaries low, made opaque decisions about hiring and firing, maintained unsafe working conditions and withheld bonuses despite a rapid increase in the cost of living.

A spike in layoffs took place in November, one of the workers explained to Mada Masr. At least 80 workers were laid off across different sectors of the company. 

The first worker, a site supervisor, said surprise layoffs have been a consistent policy since new managers took over several years ago. Tenured workers have been replaced with laborers on temporary contracts, meaning benefits are no longer extended to many. Management said the layoffs were because the company had too many workers and that many of them are old, according to the source.

Other people’s salaries were withheld in November, as a precursor to the layoffs. A former employee who was recently laid off told Mada Masr that his salary was withheld earlier in February and that his fingerprint was removed from the time clock at the work site without prior warning. He said he received no explanation for the decision from his seniors, and eventually resigned himself to the situation.

Other new policies include different rates for the annual raises and quarterly bonuses — which represent 50-70 percent of the basic salary that employees take home each month — for employees working in the same sector, said three other company workers. 

All three said that the criteria for the rates of bonuses and raises are obscure, and are consistently paid out to people related to or connected with managers. 

Managers and their assistants accrue lavish benefits, they said, while workers’ salaries stay low despite high living costs. “People who worked here for 16 years make LE6,000 a month,” the first worker said.

Regular layoffs and low wages particularly affect site supervisors, drivers, accountants, secretaries and office attendants working in the company’s different construction sites in Cairo, including the 8,000 employed in Madinaty, according to the first worker.

After the November layoffs, laborers tried to speak with management but were unable to reach an agreement. 

As a result, hundreds of employees gathered on Wednesday outside the company’s offices in the upscale New Cairo neighborhood of Madinaty, starting what is an unusually large protest for the company, according to the first worker.

The workers demanded to receive late dues, a bonus to help with the cost of living, better health insurance coverage, and the provision of safety gear on construction sites.

The first worker said that work conditions in the company’s construction sites are poor, with no safety gear available to them and insufficient healthcare coverage. Many of the tenured workers laid off have been hurt in worksite accidents or suffer from chronic illnesses, protesting workers told Mada Masr. 

Although police have shut down much smaller employee protests in the past, the first worker noted, they did nothing to stop the large crowd this time.

Before the end of the day, the financial director, along with a security representative for the Talaat Moustafa Group came to meet with protesting workers, promising them that the company will halt all layoffs, raise salaries and improve the work environment.

Now, the workers are waiting for signs that the promises will come to fruition before taking next steps.

Talaat Moustafa Group is one of the biggest private real estate developers in the country. The group came out on top of the real estate market in 2023, with sales amounting to LE140 billion — a 322 percent annual increase.

The company has also taken a preeminent position in state-led projects, including in a contract to develop seven state-owned historic hotels and another to partner with Emirati sovereign fund ADQ in the landmark Ras al-Hikma deal.