The damaged headquarters of Électricité du Liban in Beirut. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today).
BEIRUT — The state-owned Electricité du Liban (EDL) employees' union on Monday called on its members to continue their now week-long strike until Friday to demand an adjustment to their salaries and an improvement in their health insurance.
"Until now, the management has not taken any concrete steps to meet these demands, despite the financial burdens borne by employees for their healthcare via the current insurer," the EDL employees said in a statement.
The syndicate of employees is calling on the public body of EDL to contract with another, more advantageous insurer.
The union specified that the strike will not affect the operations of the production plants, and that "no maneuvers on the network will be carried out without prior coordination with the union."
The public electricity supplier has been in dire financial and structural straits since the start of the crisis in 2019, while its Beirut headquarters is still out of action since it was destroyed by the Aug. 4, 2020 port explosion.
Employees' salaries are aligned with those of other categories of civil servants. Calculated in Lebanese lira, these salaries have still not been adjusted despite the collapse of the national currency.