Lebanon’s General Labor Confederation (GLC) is set to hold a major demonstration Thursday, even as intense political pressure is brought to bear to limit the scope of the protest, according to the Beirut-based Daily Star.
GLC president Ghassan Ghosn met separately Tuesday with Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri to discuss the reasons for the demonstration, namely a sharp increase in local fuel prices, the 2002 budget and a variety of labor grievances.
Ghosn said afterward that the GLC would go ahead with its demonstration Thursday at 5:00pm.
“The fees and taxes that are affecting, and will affect, a wide segment of the population are having a negative impact on their incomes, since they were already incapable of shouldering their various burdens,” Ghosn said.
A GLC delegation also visited Hariri and will hold a second meeting the prime minister on Thursday, several hours before the demonstration, said the paper.
GLC sources said that Tuesday’s meeting with the premier failed to produce a solution, as Hariri remained insistent that the government would not go back on its decision to increase gasoline prices by LL3,000 per 20 liters.
The GLC, meanwhile, is hoping that Hariri will make good on a promise to increase two allowances for private sector employees: one to boost the daily transportation expenses from LL2,500 to LL6,000, and the other to double allowances for school tuition payments, from the current LL500,000 per child.
The GLC also received a boost from the holding of a national labor conference Tuesday at its headquarters, where some 500 union officials gathered to discuss the GLC’s criticism of government financial policies.
But according to labor officials, politicians have used the tension that has resulted from the deadly attacks in the US two weeks ago to persuade the GLC to scale down its protest, the paper added.
Lebanon is struggling to recover from decades of civil war, as well as an Israeli occupation that ended in May 2000, leaving behind minefields, countless orphans and ruined infrastructure - Albawaba.com
