Labor Minister reduces the minimum daily wage but calls for raising the minimum wage (!?)

After he supported the reduction of the minimum daily wage by LBP 4,000 thus affecting a large proportion of daily Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian laborers mainly involved in low-skilled labour (http://lkdg.org/ar/node/15441), the labor minister Saj3an Azzi called yesterday for a raise of the minimum wage to LBP 1,200,000 instead of LBP 675,000 when the economic conditions are ripe. He recalled the disastrous level of unemployment (nearly 25%) which he blamed, as usual, on Syrian refugees. Azzi, who was speaking during the opening of the First Normal Session of the Central Council of the International Federation of Arab Trade Unions, said the “Lebanese citizen cannot survive on USD 400 per month only”. The present minimum wage, as he claimed, “inspires more corruption, bribery, commissioning, poverty, terrorism and violence.” And to improve the minimum wage, Azzi concluded, requires the presence of a strong state.” In return to the recent decree lowering the daily minimum wage, the General Confederation of Professional Workers in Lebanon declared in a statement yesterday that “the decision, interpreted as a correction of a former calculation error, negatively impacts the livelihoods of daily contractual workers who do not have any health or social insurance.” “Receiving a LBP 4 thousand  cumulated  over a period of three years or more,” the statement went on, “has become an acquired right that can never be relinquished,” and warned to take the necessary measures to correct the situation. (Al Mustaqbal, Al Diyar, An Nahar, July 29, 2016)