Open electricity strike

Some 5,000 workers at Lebanon's state power company, Electricite du Liban, began an open-ended strike Tuesday to press demands for higher wages and social benefits. A statement by unions of electricity workers in Beirut and across the country said the strike was declared after authorities failed to meet their demands for a 20 percent salary raise retroactive to January 1996.

The workers union in a news conference Tuesday said that despite eight months of promises from company and ministry officials, none of their demands had been met. The workers threatened to leave any damage in Lebanon's power grid unrepaired until their demands are met.

EDL chairman Joseph Hawa responded by saying the pay demands had not been rejected but more time was needed, especially since the company was short of funds. Asked whether the strike would pressure the company to grant the demands more quickly, Hawa said: "It was not us who decided to stage a strike and we never told the workers that their demands had been rejected."

The demands include confirming workers hired on a temporary basis as permanent staff, increasing education allowances by 30 percent, providing advances to pay tuition fees and providing medical insurance after retirement.

The workers had staged a one-day warning strike in June to pressure authorities to respond to their demands.

A meeting between workers and directors at the company Wednesday failed to solve the crisis. Although no immediate electricity outages resulted from the strike, it was expected to affect repairs and maintenance as well as collection of utility bills.

Labor trade unions, representing 350,000 workers, have staged strikes and demonstrations in the past three years to pressure the government to improve worsening economic and social conditions.

Lebanon's electricity network was devastated during the 1975-90 civil war. In the past few years, the government has succeeded in repairing most of the damage and upgrading the country's power grid to provide almost round-the-clock electricity, which had been subject to rationing for years.