Ogero employees protest, block roads over pay

Employees of state-run telecom company Ogero organized Monday a sit-in in front of Ogero's headquarters in Bir Hassan, to demand better pay.

Ogero's employees had started an open-strike on Friday, after their demands were ignored. They blocked roads near their company's headquarters and said they want their salaries to be dollarized.

All public sector employees, including Ogero's employees, get paid in Lebanese pounds, while grocery stores and other businesses are now pricing their goods in dollars.

The Lebanese pound lost more than 15% of its value lately, tanking to more than 100,000 pounds to the dollar.

A cabinet session on public sector wages scheduled on Monday was postponed, after the government said last week that it will delay the start of daylight saving time by a month until the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It led to mass confusion, and Monday's session was replaced with another session that discussed the daylight delay move.

The cabinet session that was postponed had a single item on its agenda, the wages and compensations of the public and private sectors, including Ogero's employees.

During the weekend, several regions were hit with Internet outages as network problems remained unrepaired.

Ogero said that the company is also running out of fuel and that the network that has stopped working in some regions across the country will completely stop working which will also affect cell phone operators, Alfa and Touch.