SCC Demonstrates near Grand Serail in Concurrence with Cabinet Session
The Syndicate Coordination Committee held a demonstration on Wednesday to protest the cabinet’s failure to approve the new wages scale ahead of a session at the Grand Serail.
The demonstration kicked off from Beirut’s Barbir region and headed to the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut at 10:00 a.m.
“We are determined to take our rights… We insist on not correcting the official exams and we will escalate our measures until the new wages scale is swiftly approved,” Head of Association of Public Secondary School Education Teachers Hanna Gharib said during the protest.
For his part, head of the private schools teachers association Nehme Mahfoud called on the cabinet to leave if it didn’t approve the new salaries scale in 10 days.
“We received nothing but promises,” he told the public workers.
Education Minister Hassan Diab urged the teachers to continue the correction of the official exams as 80 percent of their demands have been carried out.
He told reporters that “the additional demands of the SCC are out of the Education Ministry's control.”
Diab voiced his support to the teachers’ demands, pointing out that the ministry isn’t “responsible for all the administrations in the state.”
“The teachers received all their demands, there's no excuse to continue suspending the correction of the exams,” he said.
Prime Minister Najib Miqati told reporters ahead of the cabinet session that “he refuses to yield to the any street action.”
“Things are expected to head towards further escalations,” he added.
The SCC, which is a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees, recently boycotted the correction of official exams over the government’s failure to include the new salaries scale in the state budget.
Miqati previously suggested to separate the demands of the teachers and the SCC, which angered the syndicate that accused the cabinet of “trying to divide the syndicate’s unity in the country.”
On Tuesday, the SCC held sit-ins near several ministries and state institutions across the country.
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