Municipality workers. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — Municipal employees across Lebanon intensified their strike action Thursday, a day after announcing a nationwide general strike. Participation rates varied, with higher engagement in the north and south, while the strike was not observed in the Bekaa region, according to L'Orient Today correspondents.
On Wednesday the Union of Municipal Employees in Lebanon declared a "general warning strike" in municipalities across the country, set to begin Thursday. The strike aims to secure wage increases for more than 25,000 municipal workers. The union warned that if their demands were not met, the strike could become open-ended.
In Saida, most employees at the Serail refused to process transactions, with some closing their offices in protest, according to our correspondent in the south. Mona Nasser, head of the Administrative Department at the Directorate of Regional Public Works, said the strike sought to "highlight our neglected rights" and called for public sector benefits comparable to those in the judiciary and education sectors. She added that current bonuses, not included in basic salaries, undermined end-of-service compensation, and that workers were struggling with insufficient pay under harsh conditions.
In the north, specifically in Tripoli and Akkar provinces, financial, real estate, and civil regulation departments were completely shut down, with minimal activity in government buildings, our correspondent reported. However, health and civil registration offices remained operational.
The Union had outlined Wednesday specific demands, including the "approval of a new salary scale to reflect inflation, the enforcement of payments for all approved salaries and benefits by municipal councils, the inclusion of municipal employees in social security or the State Employees Cooperative, the establishment of a pension system law for municipal employees, adjustment of family allowances, immediate payment of municipal dues and updating municipal fees to match inflation."
Lebanese public sector employees have faced deteriorating living conditions as the lira has lost more than 90 percent of its value amid soaring inflation since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2019.
Additional reporting contributed by Muntasser Abdallah, Michel Hallak, and Sara Abdallah