EDL Contract Workers Reopen Dora Highway after Promises by Jreissati

Electricite du Liban contract workers decided on Tuesday to reopen Dora highway as a goodwill gesture after promises by Caretaker Labor Minister Salim Jreissati to follow up the case of KVA service provider company's decision to sack 62 workers.

Jreissati described after talks with a delegation from the contract workers committee the company's decision as “arbitrary dismissal.”

He called on the KVA company to return the 62 sacked employees back to their posts immediately, saying that Wednesday's meeting with KVA management will be decisive.

The EDL committee warned after the meeting that it will force the closure of all EDL branches across Lebanon if Wednesday's meeting didn't reach any fruitful results.

A scuffle that erupted on Tuesday between EDL contract workers and security forces as the employees were trying to block the road near KVA company in Dora, north of Beirut, with burning tires, prompted the employees to sit in the middle of the highway.

Tens of drivers were stranded in their cars as the road closure caused bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Head of the committee Lebnan Makhoul earlier warned that the contract workers will escalate their measures if the company doesn't avert its decision to dismiss 62 workers.

The furious workers said that the Internal Security Forces hit the protesters.

Makhoul accused police members of “treating protesters in an unethical way,” vowing to continue their movement.

“We will not back down until the company gives back the 62 workers their jobs back,” he stressed.

Makhoul pointed out that the families of the discharged workers are participating in the sit-in near the KVA company.

Jreissati said earlier in comments to LBCI that blocking roads will not resolve the case nor achieve the demanded results.

He called on the contract workers to delegate several workers to the ministry to tackle the matter with him and kick off investigations concerning the arbitrary dismissal of the workers.

However, the workers replied to the Minister inviting him to join them on the ground and discuss the matter with them, stressing that they will not leave the street.

"Until the sacked workers return to their jobs we will not open the road," the contract workers said.

Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel held a telephone conversation with Makhoul in an effort to persuade them to reopen the Dora highway and end their sit-in.

“We don't trust the Labor Minister and we will not open the road until our demands are carried out,” Makhoul told Charbel.

On Saturday, the contract workers held a sit-in near EDL state-run company headquarters’s in Mar Mikhael in Beirut to demand the management of KVA, a private company, to give the sacked workers their jobs back.

The committee warned that it would trigger off a labor movement starting to “topple the plan of service providers.”

The statement urged politicians to speed up the approval of an urgent draft-law on the employment of the contract workers.

It also urged the management of SP -service providing companies - to “withdraw the intruding workers and mainly foreigners who have been trained by contract workers.”