Lebanon Public Workers’ Open Strike Continues

Lebanon’s Syndicate Coordination Committee held a third day of strikes across the country on Thursday to protest the government delay in wrapping up a new ranks and salaries system to raise state employees’ wages, the National News Agency reported.

“Protesters blocked the road near the Education Ministry in West Beirut’s UNESCO building, while raising slogans about the economic situation and urging the government to approve the new salary system.

SCC chief Hanna Gharib warned during a speech he delivered before the protesters that a newly-established “strikes committee” aims at coordinating further decisions related to strikes and sit-ins held in the Lebanese capital.

He also called on school teachers to throw their support behind the SCC demands, “since the new ranks and salaries system is for all employees.”

Meanwhile, public school teachers in Byblos held a sit-in in front of the in the coastal town’s Serail, while in the southern Lebanese town of Sidon public school teachers and civil servants gathered in the square near the city’s Serail to demand the swift referral of the new ranks and salaries system to parliament for approval.

The SCC-led strikers will organize another demonstration on Friday outside the Agriculture Ministry in Beirut’s Bir Hassan region, the NNA added.

On Monday, the Lebanese government had postponed its cabinet session scheduled to debate the funding of public salary raises after it had approved a new ranks and wages system in early September 2012.

Public employees had staged several general strikes to demand the cabinet’s approval on funding means for the new ranks and salaries system and its referral to the parliament.