EDL Contract Employees Try to Besiege Office of Company’s General Manager

Electricite du Liban contract employees gathered on Monday outside the office of the company’s general manager.

The general manager was holding a meeting at the time on his 13th-floor office.

The employees later denied that they had besieged the office, reported LBC television.

They have however carried on with their sit-in at the company, it added.

They are fearful that certain measures may be taken against them before a draft law allowing contract workers to sit for an exam that would allow them to become full-time employees would be approved, said LBC.

The workers had been asking for their rights by road closures and by blocking the entry of full-time employees to the premises of the EDL in Beirut’s Mar Mikhael area.

The move by the joint committees was made despite Change and Reform bloc MPs’ walkout from the meeting to allegedly protest some parts of the proposal.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil, who is the son-in-law of Change and Reform leader Michel Aoun, did not attend the talks.

A member of the committee of EDL contract workers said their sit-in at the company’s headquarters will continue pending parliament’s approval of their full-time employment.

Later on Thursday, Bassil held a press conference after a meeting in Rabiyeh with the members of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc.

“Any accusations that we abandoned EDL contract workers are untrue,” said Bassil.