Tag: workers

Lebanon: ALL OUT ON 24 JANUARY

Posted on By 3arabawy

Simon has great news…

Truck drivers have staged an indefinite strike along the international road in the Akkar Abda, northern Lebanon. The drivers are unhappy about regulations over the weight of their loads at the Syrian and Jordanian borders. They claim that they are not treated as well as foreign drivers and want the government to push for “reciprocity”.
The strike comes as trade unions have called a day of action over rising prices on Thursday 24 January.
The strike has been called by the confederation of road transport and agricultural unions. The unions are demanding the government “open a dialogue to address the difficult living situation.”
Updates:
• The Federation of Trade Unions and employees in the Bekaa have backed the strike call
•The nurses and midwives union will take part in a one-hour stopage at 10am on Thursday morning. They are demanding an end to “humiliation and starvation. ”
• The president of the doctors association, Dr. Ghassan Jaafar, declared that all physicians will join the strike in defence of “a living wage, freedom and against the unjust policy of the ruling authority.”
• The National Federation of Trade Unions and Workers in Lebanon has backed calls for the strike.
• The national meeting of the agricultural bodies in Akkar held a press conference in support of the strike. Mayor Tlberh Abdul Hamid Saqr, head of the tobacco farmers in the north, told appealed to transport workers, green grocers, supermarkets, cooperatives to join the strike in solidarity. Farmers should not harvest their their crops on 23 January, he said. He also called on the owners of companies and agricultural fertilizers and medicines to close in solidarity.
“I hope workers from the port of Tripoli will not load or unload grains, meat, milk and powdered milk and others,” he added.
• The union construction workers and timber sectors are coming out.
• Maritime Transport Union announced its support for the strike

Suez Trust Weavers Strike enters day 8

Posted on By 3arabawy

The workers at the Suez Trust for Weaving Industries are back on strike again, and their industrial action has entered its 8th day.

The private-owned factory has a total labor force of 1,200– a number that was once 15,000 when the company started operating in the late 1990s. The workers staged a sit-in 19 April 2007 with several demands including: their shares of profits unpaid since 1998, job contracts for the temporary workers, as well as social insurance and stepping up the industrial safety procedures whose relaxed standards lead to cases of deaths and injuries among the workers previously. The sit-in turned to a strike on 23 April that lasted till 6 May and was only disbanded hours before the meeting held between the strike leaders on the one hand, and the company’s management, Labor Ministry officials and the General Federation officials. Around 150 workers however kept rotating in a sit-in at the factory to keep the pressure. An agreement was brokered on 8 May, whereby the management pledged to pay the workers their shares of profits in July, and revoke the dismissal decrees against dozens of them. But the company owner Muhammad Ismail kept dodging the agreement, and promised to pay the workers in November, and then in January. The workers were shocked to find out then that the management had undervalued their shares of profits based on deliberate miscalculations. Hence, a strike was launched again on 14 January 2008, with the following demands:

1-The 10% shares based on the correct calculations of the company’s profits from 1998 to 2006
2- Allowances that covers: a) The daily eighth hour of work, b) hazardous nature jobs
3- A monthly LE100 allowance to help cope with the price increases