Lebanese Minister of Information Ziad Makari, March 11, 2022 at the Grand Serail. (Dalati and Nohra)
BEIRUT — The state-run National News Agency on Thursday announced an open strike starting Friday, after concluding a strike that started one week ago but did not meet their demands.
Here’s what we know:
• According to Information Minister Ziad Makari, the announcement came “after the employees of the organization and myself sensed the impossibility of arriving at the workplace to continue their message, which they never abdicated from doing.”
• Last Thursday, NNA employees announced a one-week strike after reports of a raise for judges coming from Banque du Liban. The policy would allow judges and MPs to withdraw their salaries at the LL8,000 to USD exchange rate, rather than the official rate at LL1,500, almost quintupling their wages while the parallel market rate hovers around LL28,000 to the dollar.
• In a statement, Makari said that “after a week of the warning strike by the general assembly of the Information Ministry, and after I exhausted with the authorities all the methods [for solutions] for the situation of the employees … It is unfortunate that I’m announcing that the initiatives were not fortunate to break the wall of the difficult crisis, and were not fortunate to avoid it.”
• Makari also said that “in spite of the bitter reality, I will not spare myself any effort to demand the rights of the workers … and I am assisted by the efforts of Prime Minister [designate] Najib Mikati in an attempt to reach fair solutions soon for the secretary generals and the public sector employees.”