BEIRIUT: Teachers and public servants across Lebanon observed a one-day strike Wednesday to protest delay in approving a salary raise bill.
All public school teachers and vocational academies shut down in response to the Union Coordination Committee’s call for a daylong strike.
Only 50 percent of private schools, however, committed to the action called for by the UCC, a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees.
Teachers and public employees are scheduled to hold a sit-in before midday in Downtown Beirut to protest Parliamentary Joint Committes’ failure to pass a draft law that would increase their pay.
They have threatened to step up their actions if their demands are not met.
Parliament, which began three-day meetings Tuesday to discuss a number of bills, is not scheduled to debate the salary increase.
Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh called for an installment plan to pay the wage hikes in a bid to ease pressure on the Treasury’s finances and avoid inflation.
“I’m not against the pay raise in principle, but approval should be accompanied by reforms,” Salameh told the local daily Al-Joumhouria in remarks published Wednesday.
“I believe that the most appropriate solution at the moment would be an installment [plan],” he added.
Salameh said taxes to finance the salary scale constitute 4 percent of GDP.
Electricite de Liban contract workers will join the protesters in Downtown to demand a bill be amended so that they can become permanent employees.
Parliament formed a committee comprising MPs from various blocs in a bid to reach an agreement over the draft law.
Some EDL protesters tried to make their way to Parliament Tuesday, engaging in fistfights with anti-riot police. A Lebanese Army unit and Parliament police took strict security measures around Parliament Wednesday to prevent protesters from approaching the building.
The Daily Star