Wage Hike Committee to Complete Mission Next Week amid Renewed SCC Threat

A ministerial-parliamentary committee is expected to submit its report on the wage hike mid-next week amid a renewed warning by public sector employees that they would not accept compromises.

MP Ghazi Youssef, a member of the committee, told al-Liwaa newspaper on Friday that the suggested amendments on the pay raise draft-law would be complete next week within the deadline set by parliament.

The committee was formed after lawmakers failed to approve the draft-law, angering the Syndicate Coordination Committee, a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees.

The committee is studying ways to find the appropriate revenues to fund the hike.

Head of Public Secondary School Education Teachers Association Hanna Gharib rejected “negotiations or bargaining.”

“Lowering (the promised raise) is theft,” he told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5).

The SCC is demanding a 121 percent salary raise that would be effective retroactively. It has also rejected proposals for the extra money to be paid in installments.

Many MPs and the Economic Committees, a grouping of businessmen and owners of major firms, fear that the pay hike would have a devastating impact on the economy and lead to a depreciation in the Lebanese pound.

But the SCC has vowed to go ahead with a planned nationwide strike and a protest next Tuesday.

Taxi drivers will also hold a demonstration on Monday as part of a series of protests held in the past few months to express anger at deteriorating living conditions.

On Wednesday, the General Labor Confederation is scheduled to hold a demonstration.

G.K.

H.K.