BEIRUT: This year marked a turning point for Lebanon?s labor movement and the General Labor Confederation, the organization that has traditionally been the official collective bargaining representative of the country?s workers.
After being fractured by sectarian schisms and hijacked to serve the interests of Lebanon?s political class for more than three decades, whatever last whiffs of legitimacy the GLC could claim were shattered when the rival Union Coordination Committee mobilized thousands of teachers and public sector workers in a monthlong campaign to force the government to pass a salary scale increase.
Even critics of the deal that the UCC struck with the government credit it with appealing to common professional grievances and interests, rather than the sectarian and political affiliations that politicians have instrumentalized since the Civil War to turn the GLC into a tool to protect their interests.
Socialist forum member Bassem Cheet summed up the criticism lobbed at the GLC by seven politicians, union leaders and activists from across the political spectrum in interviews about the future of Lebanon?s labor movement: ?It is not a union. It is just an empty shell that was smashed to nothing between 1997 and 2004.?
Even the GLC?s own members, such as Georges Hajj, the head of the Federation of Bank Employees? Union, characterized the activities of the GLC over the past year as ?a complete failure,? singling out the union?s inability to modernize the NSSF and the battle over the minimum wage as particularly catastrophic for employees.
When asked to compare the UCC and GLC, Hajj said, ?You cannot compare oil and water.?
?The difference is that the UCC is completely independent from any political parties and moreover they really represent employees in the public sector. They have a real cause,? he said.
?The situation within the GLC is completely different. The majority of unions are dependent on political parties and these parties completely dominate the action of the federations to the point where they cannot move unless they have approval from the parties they represent,? he explained.
Samir Farah of the Friedrich Ebert Stiffung Institute in Beirut, traces the problems that riddle the GLC and that have prevented the formation of an independent trade union movement back to Lebanon?s labor law, which requires all syndicates to get permits from the Labor Ministry to be officially recognized by the government.
The Labor Ministry, for instance, has been controlled by a March 8 politician since 2007.
?I have to say the GLC is a mirror of the country right now in its confessional and political divisions, [which] ... have paralyzed its activity,? Farah said.
?They are the official representative of the workers in Lebanon, but actually I feel other trade union organizations are growing up and taking its place, such as the teachers syndicate and the banking employee?s federation,? he added.
The UCC currently represents more than 40 independent syndicates and has more than 140,000 members, mainly employed in the civil service or as public and private school teachers, according to its head, Hana Gharib.
Farah believes the UCC made a huge breakthrough with the salary scale negotiations, but will need to capitalize on this success in the future in order to expand its base beyond teachers and public sector workers, who still do not have the right to legally unionize.
?It?s a long struggle for them, but they are on track to be the legitimate representative of public sector workers in contravention of Lebanese law.?
The only person The Daily Star interviewed who believes the GLC could still legitimately claim to represent the interests of the working class is Ghassan Ghosn, who has headed the union since 1997, but does not deny that the organization is politicized.
?All of the labor unions in Lebanon and the world are backed by political parties and the GLC is no exception. Why don?t you ask the UCC which parties back them?? Ghosn said.
He told The Daily Star that the GLC currently represents 42 labor unions and has fought tirelessly for the rights of its 400,000 members for the past 15 years, most notably when it launched a series of strikes two years ago to demand a larger increase in the minimum wage than the one proposed by the Cabinet.
He also pointed out that the UCC was not even officially recognized by the government.
?I don?t care what the UCC says. We are the ones who fought hard to help the teachers and civil servants get their rights. If they don?t like the salary adjustments which we obtained for them in February 2012 then they shouldn?t have collected this raise.?
UCC head Gharib, along with other critics, dismissed the settlement the GLC reached with the government as one its many betrayals of the working class over the past 15 years.
?The GLC always yields to the pressures of the employers and for this reason the confederation accepted a deal to raise the minimum wage from LL500,000 to LL670,000 only. Imagine that Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas wanted to raise the minimum wage to LL965,000, but Ghassan Ghosn bowed to the pressure of the employers.?
Hajj still hopes the GLC will reform its policies from within and released a labor manifesto earlier this week outlining a plan that would allow it to effectively protect the interests and rights of the country?s workers.
The first step of the manifesto calls for proportional representation in the GLC. Right now each of the 42 syndicates in the GLC have two representatives, which means a larger union like the Federation of Bank Employees?, which represents 10,000 workers, has the same voting rights as significantly smaller ones. The GLC should also clarify how the organization functions and the rights and duties of each committee, according to the manifesto.
Nahhas believes the GLC abdicated its role over the past 16 years and is not optimistic about its reform prospects.
?The simple fact is that a new union movement is emerging after 20 years of complete repression,? he said. ?The core of this movement is the UCC ... [which] has already passed a very difficult benchmark with the negotiation over the salary scale increase. This movement has clearly shown its independence from the political forces.?
It remains to be seen whether the UCC will successfully mobilize a broader base of workers in the coming year.
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