Electricite du Liban
contract workers officially announced on Friday the end of their three-month
strike and the resumption of work at the company after striking a deal with the
government.
“We will end our strike
and the committee will continue to hold meetings to follow up the
implementation of the deal,” Lebnan Makhoul,a member of the EDL contract
workers committee, told reporters during a press conference at the General
Labor Confederation headquarters.
For his part, head of
GLC Ghassan Ghosn said that “we will immediately implement the agreement and
end the sit-in at EDL's headquarters in Mar Mikhael in Beirut.”
He cited the 5-point
agreement between the contract workers and the government that includes the
company’s payment of the contract workers salaries till the month of July, the
full time employment of some contract workers by sitting for a closed exam as
called for by a draft law approved by the parliament, according to the
vacancies at EDL, giving those who don’t qualify to become permanent employees
the financial compensations in exchange for their 10 or 20 years of service at
the company and transferring the rest to private-service providers, forming a
committee from AMAL movement, Hizbullah and al-Marada movement to modify the
draft law which was approved by the parliament.
TV footage showed
several workers opening the main gate and launching fireworks and firecrackers
at EDL’s headquarters in Beirut marking the end of the contract workers’
strike.
The workers also removed
the tent that they erected inside the company’s premises.
But celebrations turned
sour after reports emerged among the contract workers saying that the
Distribution Department is not involved in the deal, prompting an employee to
vow to continue the strike and briefly closing off the main gate again.
Others stressed that the
department was included denying those reports.
“The deal struck between
the government and EDL contract workers includes the Distribution Department in
all regions and mainly Mount Lebanon and Beirut,” Ghosn told the contract
workers gathered at the company’s headquarters.
Several officials
reassured the workers, denying the reports, which prompted the end of the
strike.
The contract workers
have been demanding the company to pay them their June and July salaries and
their full-time employment.
Earlier, An Nahar
newspaper reported that an agreement was signed to end the crisis by advisor of
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hussein Khalil, Speaker Nabih Berri’s
advisor Health Minister Ali Hassan Khalil and Free Patriotic Movement leader MP
Michel Aoun’s son-in-law Energy Minister Jebran Bassil.
However, al-Akhbar
newspaper reported that the settlement led to a rift between the contract
workers as some voiced their support to the deal while others rejected it.
“The contract workers
fear that the cabinet might not hold onto the implementation of the agreement
as the deal didn’t set any execution date,” the daily said.
Earlier in July the
parliament endorsed a draft law approving the permanent employment of the
workers, but the matter created a rift between Berri and Aoun as 80 percent of
them are Shiites.http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/48762
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