Lebanon union strike not helping economy
The Union Coordinating Body is missing an opportunity to fix the large amount of government waste.
On May 8, the Union Coordinating Body (UCB) started its seven-day strike for all public sector departments in Lebanon. The UCB has set May 14 as the “day of the big explosion.” In effect, the UCB rejected the parliamentary subcommittee’s proposals to find a solution to the dilemma of the “ranks and salaries scale.”
The UCB is demanding a “full victory.” It rejected proposals to increase wages by 30-60% and insists on its basic demands: a 120% wage increase. The UCB also rejects the subcommittee’s proposal to fund the scale through tax measures totaling 1.7422 trillion Lebanese pounds ($1.16 billion), because the UCB argues that 60% of the new tax revenues would affect products and services used by all citizens.
