In Egypt, discussions over a new labour law, which should replace the law 12/2003, have started after the 2011 uprising. Yet, they have failed until today to enact this law. While the new trade union law 213/2017 was issued in the 5th of December 2017 after a long negotiation process, the persistent incapacity to promulgate a new labour law proves that a consensus, among the different political and societal actors on that matter, remains hard to achieve. It also reveals that the current regime, in spite of its capacity for massive repression, faces obvious challenges in regard to socio-political reforms. Against this framework, this paper discusses these research questions: How to explain this delay in issuing a new labour law post-2011? How did the reconfiguration of socio-political alliances post-2014 influence the dynamics of these contentious interactions? To what extent do the contentious dynamics over this law reflect the difficulties of neoliberal adaptation on the one hand and authoritarian bargaining on the other hand? To answer these questions, the paper analyses the main points of contention at stake over the different versions of the draft labour law since 2011. It argues that its primary goal was not to provide a new framework for work relations in Egypt. Instead, its aim was to introduce new mechanisms of conflict regulation in order to contain workers’ contentious actions. As the increase of the workers’ protests was spectacular before 2011, the political elites try to manage the workers’ protests by new mechanisms of conflict regulation such as the introduction of labour courts. As the analysis reveals however, they face resistance of private businessmen who reject any measures that would limit their power vis-à-vis their employees. The third major stakeholder, workers, are the weakest part. While some parts of the independent trade union movement were at times involved in the negotiation process, their demands are far from being met. Hence, these mechanisms of conflict regulation might decrease labour protests in short term but will hardly contain workers’ protests in the longer term. The analysis for this research is based on qualitative research methods. It relies on around ten semi-structured interviews with technocrats, labour leaders as well as labour activists. The research also draws on non-participant observation of internal union meetings and labour-related events; and utilizes Arabic-language primary sources such as newspaper articles and pamphlets.