With a vast area of planned construction at the center of El-Mahalla El-Kubra—in the middle of the Nile Delta— Al-Mosta’mara is a city inside a city. It is home to thousands of spinning and weaving workers and now, thousands of investors are attracted by its strategic location.

With a vast area of planned construction at the center of El-Mahalla El-Kubra—in the middle of the Nile Delta— Al-Mosta’mara is a city inside a city. It is home to thousands of spinning and weaving workers and now, thousands of investors are attracted by its strategic location.

The workers’ city, known as Al-Mosta’mara, has three gates overlooking Tanta-El-Mahalla highway, each 100 meters away from each other. They are actually three holes in the low wall around the city. Even though there are internal security guards of the Spinning and Weaving Company at each gate, they don’t stop people from going in and out and identity cards are not checked. 

Muhammad Wadi, one of the oldest workers in the company, who was pensioned years ago after turning 60, meets other retired coworkers everyday in front of their colleague’s house,  inside Al-Mosta’mara; not to chit-chat but to discuss the lawsuits filed by the company to expel about 750 families from the city after their breadwinners retired. This process is under the project of transforming part of the area’s houses into commercial units.

The workers’ city is for workers

Wadi looked busy preparing the needed documents to submit them to government officials in a new attempt to stop executing the expulsion ruling. “This is a contract between the government and the company, signed in 1976,” Wadi said.  “It reveals the history of the city and its real owners and refutes the company’s allegations of owning the entire city.”

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Workers in Mahalla protest displacement.

The city was built on an area of 69 acres allocated by the government to the company, free of charge in 1945, but the land is still officially owned by the government, according to Walid. In 1976, the company bought the city buildings and paid for the buildings from the workers’ profit shares, where 15% of their annual profits were deducted until 1991. Accordingly, the buildings are owned by the workers, while the surrounding lands, gardens and facilities are owned by the government. Thus, the company is not entitled to evacuate the workers from their city, he added.  

Acquiring a house akin to winning the lottery

Getting permission to occupy a house inside the city is no easy task. A significant number of the company workers didn’t manage to get a house there.

Meeting with his coworkers at their favorite café inside the city, Muhammad Fathi, another worker, recalls how he suffered for many years before he finally got a house in the city. It is not an insignificant privilege since he no longer has to pay monthly rent for a house outside the city. The increasing rent in El-Mahalla has led many workers to rent houses in nearby villages to cut down on expenses.

His colleague, Faisal Laqoushah – a labor leader – preferred not to get into the ‘fuss’ of applying for a housing unit in the city. “I have chosen to live in my parents’ house. The demand for these houses is huge. Unless you are well-connected, your application will not be approved,” he said.

Although the city has a large number of vital facilities, including a post office, schools, cafés, a passport department, mosques, parks, a gas store, a bakery and a water station, it lacks groceries. So buying food requires going out to nearby neighborhoods.

The high rent outside the city leads people ordered to evacuate their homes to hold on to them. The company doesn’t provide alternative houses. Maghrebi confirms that the company is required to provide alternative housing for workers who retire but that has not been happening for years and has caused a crisis. He claims that the company violated presidential decision no. 2095 of 1996, which states that a worker’s heirs are entitled to use the administrative housing. It also violates the prime minister’s decision of 1996, which criminalizes evacuating retired workers without providing alternative houses.

Political forces support the residents

Many political forces and activists of youth movements – all from outside the city – support its retirees. One of those is Mamdouh Salah, member of the Egyptian Democratic Party, who lives in the Monsha’a Jadida just outside the city’s wall. “Everyday I pass by the city on the way back home from work,” he said, pointing out that the cement city walls do not foster a friendly relationship between the residents of El-Mahalla and the Al-Mosta’mara workers, especially since children of the nearby areas play football in the Al-Mosta’mara empty spaces and go to its schools. In addition, El-Mahalla residents pray in the Al-Mosta’mara mosque, get gas cylinders from its warehouse and apply for passports in its department. “I personally have many friends there, and it is natural that I support them.”      

Future of workers’ city

The crisis previously ended when Adel Mozi, Minister of Investment in the government of Essam Sharaf, supported the workers and decided to suspend the seizure and compensation rulings. But it started again under the current government when the company chairman, Abdulaleem Hassan, announced that he intended to sell the land for L.E. 2 billion (US $327,674,781) and pump the money in the company to invigorate its activities. In light of the government officials’ silence, the retirees face an uncertain and vague future.