By
Wassim Mroueh
BEIRUT:
Despite government ministers’ assertions this week that civil servants were
wrong to engage in protests, the recent signing of an International Labor
Organization convention by the labor minister guarantees the “Freedom of
Association and Protection of the Right to Organize.”
A
source close to Labor Minister Salim Jreissati told The Daily Star that
international conventions supersede local laws, and that the Cabinet had
committed itself to the convention after the minister signed it.
The
source noted that local laws contradicting this convention should be amended.
In
recent weeks, teachers and public sector employees who want the Cabinet to pass
a new salary scale for the public sector have taken their demands to the
streets, launching a strike and even delivering an ultimatum to the government.
Facing
the mounting protests at ministries and other state buildings, the Cabinet said
in its last session that, according to Article 15 of the law of state
employees, civil servants do not have the right to strike and paralyze the
public sector.
The
teachers’ boycott has left some 100,000 students in limbo as they await results
of the official exams for grades 9 and 12.
The
actions by their allies in the public sector, meanwhile, are protected by an
international convention signed by Jreissati allowing civil servants to go on
strike and form unions.
Spearheading
the protests is the Union Coordination Committee, a coalition of teachers and
public sector employees that has been operating for over five years.
Representing
public sector employees in UCC is the League of Public Sector Employees, formed
a year and a half ago, according to Mahmoud Haidar.
“Before
that date, we were called the League of Graduates and Interns of the National
Administrative Institute,” Haidar, the league’s head, told The Daily Star. “We
then decided to embrace all public sector employees.”
Haidar
said that all full-timers at ministries and their administrations are members
of the league, except for judges and members of the Army and the Internal
Security Forces.
Contract
workers in the public sector, along with full-timers in the state-run National
Social Security Fund and certain other public departments are not members.
Boycotting
the correction of officials exams is aimed at pressuring the government into
passing a new salary scale for the public sector, enabling tens of thousands of
teachers and public sector employees to benefit from a salary raise introduced
to the private sector in January.
In
parallel to the teachers’ actions, public sector employees have held several
strikes and sit-ins in ministries and state buildings.
Metn
MP Sami Gemayel, from the Kataeb (Phalange) Party, has forwarded to Parliament
two draft laws, amending Article 83 of the labor law, and the same law’s
Article 15 that Cabinet ministers cited Wednesday when objecting to striking
civil servants.
Judges
and members of the Army and Internal Security Forces would be excluded from
this legislation.
Asked
whether the draft legislation would have enough support to pass in Parliament,
Gemayel told The Daily Star Thursday: “I behaved in line with my duties and
convictions – let everybody assume his responsibility.”
Gemayel
said that while civil servants currently have no right to strike or form
unions, “for us, the right of union activity is sacred.”
Asked
whether he himself supported the teachers’ moves, the Metn lawmaker said that
the problem did not lie in union action, but rather in the fact that the
Cabinet lacks a comprehensive economic plan.
Haidar
voiced hope that the draft laws forwarded by Gemayel would be endorsed by
Parliament soon.
“A coalition of unions will
revive union action and allow unions to become partners with the Cabinet in
devising the needed [socioeconomic] policies,” he said.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Jul-27/182205-labor-laws-in-lebanon-heat-up-on-heels-of-ilo-signing.ashx#axzz21nkjCWVH
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