Lebanese lira banknotes. (João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
BEIRUT—The League of Public Administration Employees has called all public sector labor unions to participate in a sit-in at the Grand Serail on Thursday morning, coinciding with the caretaker cabinet’s first discussion of the 2024 draft budget issued by the Finance Ministry last week, according to a statement from issued by the League.
Calling the 2024 draft budget “one of the advanced stages in the plan to seize employees’ salaries, rights, bodies, and souls,” the League also declared the continuation of partial strikes, with members attending work only one day per week, until Oct. 13.
The League’s statement blasts the 2024 draft budget for, in its view, doing nothing to correct salaries that have lost the majority of their value due to currency depreciation. Salaries saw a seven-fold increase in lira terms, legislated in the 2022 budget law and an April 2023 cabinet decree but are still far below pre-crisis levels.
The League also criticized the proposed VAT increase from 11 percent to 12 percent, which would come into effect on Jan. 1, 2024 if the draft budget is passed in its current form. According to the union this would be a “sweeping tax on all low-income people.”
Among its demands, the League calls for the partial or complete dollarization of salaries, as well as wages and pensions, set at a minimum of $700 per month, or the lira equivalent.