The Daily Star - Labor Day losing significance as workers abandon activism - May 03, 2011

By Van Meguerditchian

The Daily Star BEIRUT: Once known as a time that united labor groups in a show of strength, with thousands of workers marching in major cities, May 1 has gradually become little more than a welcome day of vacation for many in the country. Long considered important for uniting workers around the world for a common cause, a Labor Day rally belongs to no one in particular. “Belongs to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race or nation,” as the founder of American Federation of Labor, Samuel Gompers once said. But such a display of unity among workers has been absent in recent years in Lebanon. According to one worker, International Worker’s Day has lost much of its meaning as it faces competition from other public holidays on the calendar. “There are so many days dedicated to special occasions that Labor Day is just like any other one,” said Issam Subra, a 30-year-old blacksmith working in Achrafieh. “Don’t be surprised if you hear of a new day dedicated to the Sunnis, another for the Maronites, while Shiites get dates to celebrate Hezbollah’s day and Amal’s day,” said Subra, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to the country’s numerous holidays. His colleague joined the conversation, dismissing a holiday as a ineffective way to achieve labor rights. “Why do we need a Labor Day? No one is listening to our demands and no one cares about the worker anyway,” said Ahmad Hussein. A rally organized by the Lebanese Communist Party in Beirut Sunday was joined by anti-sectarian activists who, as part of their broader demands for an anti-sectarian government, have called for a labor environment where employment isn’t sought or granted on a confessional basis. Demonstrators marching from Wata al-Moseitebeh to the Grand Serail in Downtown Beirut called for the toppling of the sectarian regime. “Our interest as Lebanese laborers is to topple the sectarian regime, which has not provided Lebanon anything but disasters and occupation by the Zionist enemy,” said LCP’s Secretary General Khaled Hadadeh. From the 1960s, left-wing parties and labor unions in the country organized major marches on International Workers’ Day. But as the economy has since evolved, and traditional labor sectors such as agriculture and industry have lost ground to finance, tourism and other service sectors, it has become more difficult to motivate the masses to take to the streets. Moreover, the approximately 1.5 million strong Lebanese workforce is joined by an estimated million foreign laborers who have found work in the country since the end of the Civil War in 1990. Many of these migrant workers have taken on positions of manual labor but are not members of unions or labor organizations. Amid a political vacuum and the absence of a strong and united labor federation, President Michel Sleiman congratulated the Lebanese on International Workers’ Day and called on the nation to sustain its economic and security stability to help guarantee workers’ rights. In an ironic twist, many of the people at work this Labor Day were those in blue-collar jobs. For a maintenance service provider, Labor Day is not a day off. “Our work cannot be stopped … we have to be on service 24 hours and we need to provide the people with their needs,” said Mohammad Ghezzayel. For Ghezzayel, who has been working in the maintenance service sector for the past 20 years, Labor Day is an important occasion to remind leaders of workers’ dignity and their value in the country. But for a young salesperson working at a store in Hamra, May 1 is no longer meaningful. “It can no longer be called a special day [Labor Day], it’s simply another day we get off,” the salesperson said. And for an elderly man who plays the oud musical instrument and sings on the sidewalk in Achrafieh, Labor Day is mainly a blow to his livelihood. “There is no one to pay me for what I play when there is no traffic on the streets in the city,” said Maroun al-Nashef.