Baalbeck municipal employees during a sit-in on Monday. (Credit: Sarah Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — Baalbeck's municipal employees held a sit-in Monday in front of the municipality’s headquarters to protest the sharp devaluation of their salaries, which are paid in Lebanese lira. The country’s public administration employees have been observing an open-ended strike since Thursday.
Here’s what we know:
• During their sit-in, the protesters denounced the fact that their wages now barely amount to the equivalent of $40 per month, L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the area reported. In a speech, a spokesperson for the group highlighted that this amount could barely pay for “three 20-liter cans of gasoline” and said that the employees “could no longer send their children to school or meet their basic needs.”
• Municipality head Fouad Ballouk responded by calling on President Michel Aoun and Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi to pay the municipalities the funds owed to them for the year 2019 “so that workers can be paid.”
• Last week, municipal workers in Tripoli, North Lebanon, also demonstrated to demand better working and living conditions.