Inspired by Gramsci’s seminal work on the subaltern – taken back to its class dimension-, and based on my past extended fieldwork in Egypt, this paper is looking at the emergence of ‘subaltern subjects’ as the protagonists of the different waves of the Egyptian Uprising, from January 2011 onwards. My main argument is that, as ‘street politics’ played a fundamental role in the protest movements both before and after January 2011, the role played by old and new form of social and political resistance needs further and deeper investigation. Whilst my wider research is considering both those sites and actors of resistance with an established societal recognition–such as workers, women, students and civic activists- and at those without a tradition of political activism, like the football ‘ultras’ and the self-organised resistance in the ‘social nonmovements’ (Bayat, 2013), this study will focus on the experience of the independent Trade Unions (ITUs). The trajectory of the ITUs is pivotal as it emerged in the late 2000s as the first organized subaltern actor vis à vis the regime, helping to create the ‘Revolutionary conditions’ for the 2011 Uprising. It is therefore fundamental to look at how workers’ resistance has been transformed by ‘Revolutionary practice’, in the ‘window of opportunity’ (2011-13), and especially after July 2013 military-led coup, with ITUs leader becoming Ministry of Manpower. Against this background, Gramsci’s writings can help illuminate the different trajectories of ITUs and workers’ activism in general since July 2013, especially in understanding how and why they became distant from the subaltern actors they claimed to represent, thus failing to deliver their promise of resistance.