EDL workers end sit-in as deal is reached

Contract workers to join private firms for a year until a law for their full-time employment is passed

Hourly wage earning workers and bill collectors at Electricité du Liban ended their three-month long sit-in today (August 3), ending a crisis that had threatened to blackout the whole country. The dispute between EDL and workers was resolved in a deal signed by the Minister of Energy and Water Gebran Bassil and the Minister of Public Health Ali Hassan Khalil.

The deal involved amending the law adopted last month in Parliament but postponed its implementation. The contract workers will join private service providers hired by EDL for a year until a law for their full-time employment is passed. Hiring contract workers as full time State civil servants requires executive decrees.

In a year, the contract workers will have to sit for official exams to qualify for full time employement at EDL. No new workers have been hired to fill vacancies in the State civil service since the early 90s.

"Workers will join the private service providers (contracted by EDL) for one year pending the finalization of the law that authorizes their full-time employment at EDL,” said Mohamad Fayad, chief of the follow-up committee of contract workers and bill collectors.

Workers who pass the exam will become full-time employees at EDL. Those who fail the exams will be either employed by private service providers, or given end-of-service pensions. “Workers who fail exams can work with the service providers, after their four-year term ends they can return to work at EDL as permanent contract workers,” said Jad el Rumh a workers' representative. The contract between EDL and the private service providers is for four years and is renewable. Rumh said workers who have approached retirement age will be given their pensions according to the number of years they worked at EDL.

According to the deal, bill collectors should transfer to the EDL money collected from electricity bills. EDL has said that the collection of bills has been suspended since May, but some bill collectors are withholding more than $650,000 collected before the sit in began.

Service providers have agreed to pay workers their wages for the past three months, only after the deal is fulfilled.

Reported by Abeer Darwiche