"We are still asking for the same demands from January 25. For three years…we got nothing."

Malek Bayoumi, leader of the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions (EFITU), leans back in his chair. In the corridor outside, crinkled newspaper cuttings of the federation’s ex-leader, Kamal Abu Eita, line the walls.

This was Abu Eita’s office until he became labour minister in Egypt’s post-Morsi cabinet. In one of the cuttings outside, Abu Eita is smiling underneath a flat-cap.

He didn’t look like your usual Egyptian minister; many hoped the independent trade unionist would finally deliver the labour movement’s demands.

Many are still waiting.

Journalist Jano Charbel remembers sitting next to Abu Eita in a prison cell after being arrested protesting against the Iraq war in 2003. "You had this freedom fighter and strike leader and [now]…it’s strange to see," he says, referring to the minister’s silence on months of violence, arrests and crackdowns.

"There seems to be this collective amnesia in Egypt now."

Egypt’s ’third revolution’

Egypt no longer looks ripe for revolution, three years after the January 25, 2011 uprising ousted Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship in the hope of bread, freedom and social justice.

Key revolutionary activists are now being jailed, while Muslim Brotherhood supporters are routinely killed and imprisoned by the military-backed government.

The country’s labour movement, which played a decisive role in challenging Mubarak long before Egyptians took Tahrir Square, has suffered.

While the security apparatus and pro-army campaigners have been preparing to reclaim January 25 as a celebration of the regime – at one point, so the rumours went, the day would be reinstated as National Police Day – both trade unionists and business figures have been warning of a "third revolution."

Now unrest is centred on a long-running debate over Egypt’s planned minimum wage – a basic income of EGP 1,200 (US$172) – but it’s also the expression of three years of broken promises.

"I’m warning the government. They have to comply with the workers’ demands," Bayoumi was quoted as saying in September. "It’s not planned yet, but they have to look after the workers, otherwise finally there will be a third revolution – in the factories, in the government, everywhere."

Independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm also quoted Bayoumi as saying workers would continue their struggle "even if it costs them a third revolution." He now adamantly denies saying it.

"I’m still against the government," Bayoumi smiles, dragging on a cigarette. "I’m not here for their satisfaction."

Organisers at EFITU, established amidst the 2011 revolution following years of state monopoly over workers’ organizations, are still waiting for a bill to pass enshrining the right to freedom of association. The view now is that that will wait until after parliamentary elections, the date of which is yet to be announced.

The EGP 1,200 wage demand was born out of a Mahalla textiles factory strike in 2006. "It’s basically where the demand originated," Charbel says. "It spread to other textile mills, private and public…then into other sectors. There was this spillover effect."

It could continue.

"I know if the public sector gets this, the private sector will want to be on an equal bar too. It’s not just going to affect blue-collar workers, but white-collar professionals too."

Abu Eita’s ministry has promised to introduce a EGP1,200 minimum wage for public sector workers by the end of January. However it’s not clear how exactly it will work, and many questions remain. What about private sector workers? Is this a basic salary or income?

This month, Mohamed al-Bahi, a director’s board member at the Egyptian Federation of Industries (FEI), similarly claimed that Egypt risked facing widespread industrial unrest at the end of January if the government didn’t deliver. While he was unavailable for comment, al-Bahi’s remarks reflect a wider uneasiness among owners and industrialists.

A Financial Times article last month warned minimum wage increases could add to factory owners’ troubles. “Expenses for workers are becoming so high and I know that if things continue this way and the market doesn’t pick up, I will have to close the business and sell the factory,” one said.

’Lies and incitement’

But workers are impatient. "We are waiting until the end of January, and if the minimum wage isn’t applied to all workers, there will be strikes everywhere," warns Aly Fatouh, a strike leader at the Public Transport Authority in Cairo. Fatouh says workers have discussed minimum wage provisions for a week: strike action is on the table. There is a feeling that transport authority workers are not going to benefit. "That would be the last straw."

However labour ministry spokesman Alaa Awad said: "I view these warnings as lies and incitement."

"The workers of Egypt know how bad the economic crisis is, and they know protesting now is unpatriotic," he added, similar language to that recently used by officials and unions.

In July, Abu Eita cheered Morsi’s exit but then proclaimed: "Workers who were champions of the strike under the previous regime should now become champions of production," - a quote interpreted by some as a call to end strike action.

Abu Eita later "clarified" his position, but in the run-up to the January 14-15 constitutional referendum asked workers to observe their "national duty" before "their own interests."

The Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF), seen by many as an arm of the state, has meanwhile allied itself with the government and the "sword and shield of Egypt," General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

When secretary-general Abdel Fattah Ibrahim urged members to vote "yes" in the referendum, some workers protested. Ibrahim allegedly ordered them out of the press conference, calling them "terrorists." He has since accused Brotherhood "traitors and agents" of infiltrating ETUF.

Today Egypt is talking more about stability than revolution. But what stability means to some, for others translates to defeat, brazen military rule, and a return to Mubarak-era economics.

Either way, if the government fails to quickly and genuinely address workers’ demands, it may encounter a far less appealing hark back to the pre-revolution days: the threat of powerful opposition from Egypt’s labour movement.

Additional reporting by Abdalla Kamal