This article examines the decade-long contentious encounter between the Egyptian regime and Egyptian organized labor over changes in the labor law. I examine why an authoritarian regime which was often willing to deploy violence against its opponents encountered such difficulties in pushing through one of the central components of Egypt's structural adjustment program. I argue that Egyptian organized labor was able to influence the process of economic restructuring in general and reform of the labor code in particular because in the decades prior to the initiation of reforms in the 1990s, unions were able to acquire important resources. These resources included legal prerogatives, a degree of financial autonomy from the state as well as experience gained from previous contentious encounters with the state. These resources in turn allowed them to shape policy debates once the structural adjustment program commenced.