Parliament Approves EDL Contract Workers Full-Time Employment

The parliament on Monday approved a draft law on hiring Electricité du Liban contract workers on a full-time basis.

The candidates will have to take part in a closed contest organized and supervised by the Civil Service Board, state-run National News Agency reported.

Energy Minister Jebran Bassil held on Saturday the Christian Ministers and MPs responsible for the sectarian imbalance in EDL if the contract workers’ full-time employment was approved by the parliament.

According to An Nahar newspaper, Bassil pointed out that around 80 percent of the contract workers belong to non-Christian sects and most of them support Speaker Nabih Berri, who is a Shiite.

In June, the parliamentary joint committees tasked with resolving the EDL contract workers’ crisis agreed to include all of them in a selection process for permanent employment.

For his part, Berri told As Safir newspaper that the right to contest the approval of EDL’s contract workers’ full-time employment is “permitted.”

“The constitutional council is the authority that will have the final word regarding the issue.”

The contract workers told reporters, as the parliamentary session went underway, that they’re “not thugs; our measures today are in protest against the delay in carrying out our demands and in paying our salaries.”

“Our trust is in the MPs and Speaker Nabih Berri, hoping a happy ending that satisfies everyone,” they added.

“The full-time employment is conditioned by the exam that Bassil already approved, the difference is that he suggested to permanently approve the employment of 700 employee,” a ministerial source told al-Liwaa newspaper.

Bassil has previously proposed to allow 700 contract workers to stand for an official exam, out of some 2,500 employees, while the rest would become employees at private companies under a three-month probation period as the company can’t contain all of the employees.

Head of the parliamentary energy committee MP Mohammed Qabbani told the daily that the decision taken by the joint parliamentary committees is to “facilitate the matter and not to torment” anyone.

He predicted that around 1,200 employees would be permanently employed out of 1,700 contract workers.