Lebanon Bankers Threaten New Strike over Safety Concerns

The Federation of Syndicates of Banks Employees in Lebanon on Thursday warned that it might stage a new strike amid the ongoing protests in the country that have increasingly targeted banks in recent days.

In a statement, the federation said “bank branches witnessed organized attacks in late 2019 by individuals claiming to represent the popular protest movement.”

“Through their storming of several bank branches, these hooligans sought to tarnish the image of the banking sector… and they breached all the norms of public morals, hurling all kinds of insults and profanes at the employees. They also beat up some colleagues,” the federation added.

Describing the incidents as “a direct attack on the banking sector and the national value it represents as well as on the prestige of the state, whose duty is to protect all citizens,” the federation noted that “the state of chaos created by these organized attacks will not alleviate the suffering of depositors.”

“Depositors have the right, under the applicable laws, to object against the extraordinary measures that the administrations of banks have temporarily taken to preserve the continuity of the work of the banking sector and to avoid a descent into the unknown,” the federation explained.

Accordingly, the federation urged all security agencies to “protect bankers in their places of work against the violations of those who claim to be rebels against corruption and the waste of public funds.”

The federation “warns that should security forces fail to deter these hooligans, it will be obliged to take the decision of declaring a new general strike in the banking sector pending the restoration of stability and calm in all places of work and branches across the country,” the statement said.

A grinding liquidity crunch has hit Lebanon, where unprecedented protests since October 17 have railed against the political class and a deepening economic crisis.

Since September, banks have restricted the amount of dollars that can be withdrawn or transferred abroad.

Although no formal policy is in place, most have arbitrarily capped withdrawals at around $1,000 a month, while others have imposed tighter restrictions.

With ordinary depositors bearing the brunt of these measures, bank branches have transformed into arenas of conflict.

Fistfights, shouting and tears abound, as cash-hungry clients haggle tellers to release money trapped under informal capital controls.

By trapping dollar savings, banks are increasingly forcing the public to deal with the plummeting Lebanese pound, in what experts are calling a de-facto haircut.

The local currency has lost around 30 percent of its value on the unofficial exchange market for the first time since it was pegged to the dollar at 1,500 Lebanese pounds in 1997.

The restrictions have sparked panic in debt-ridden Lebanon, where protesters are demanding the removal of a political class they deem incompetent and corrupt.

A video circulating on social media shows a customer pulling out an axe in the middle of a bank while he screams at employees who refused to hand him his money.

In the northern city of Tripoli, a single soldier struggled to break up a fist fight between a handful of bank employees and a group of angry customers.

As demonstrations enter their third month, protesters are also increasingly targeting banks, which they say are robbing people of their hard-earned savings.

They have staged impromptu demonstrations inside branches, during the Christmas holidays singing carols to relay their message.