SCC Rejects Payment of New Wages in Installments

The Syndicate Coordination Committee rejected on Friday the government's proposal that the new wage scale be payed in installments over a five-year period.

It instead demanded that the wages be made in one full installment and that the government approve the format that was agreed upon with the committee.

It made its declaration after a meeting in the UNESCO area in Beirut.

The SCC is a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees

It also demanded that the new wages be retroactive from July 1, 2012.

The committee revealed that it will meet on September 20 in order to announce its upcoming steps on the matter.

Earlier on Friday, the head of the private schools teachers association Nehme Mahfoud told Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) that paying the salary adjustments in installments is heresy that had never happened before in the history of the Lebanese Republic.

“The SCC will evaluate the cabinet's decision, the pros and cons, before implementing a truce” with the government, Mahfoud said.

On Thursday, the cabinet approved during a session at the Baabda Palace the new salaries scale for public employees ending a long dispute that had prompted the SCC to hold several sit-ins and strikes.

The government's wages increase will be retroactive from July 1, 2012, but the salary adjustments would be paid in installments over a period of five years.

For his part, Head of secondary school teachers association Hanna Gharib lashed out at the cabinet's decision saying “it violated the agreement with the SCC when it decided to pay the new wages scale in installments.”

Civil servants staged a nationwide strike on Thursday after the cabinet failed a day before to approve the new scale over sharp divisions between its members on the percentage of the hike and the state treasury revenue as it will have more than $1billion and 200 million to cover.

The SCC threatened to announce an open-ended strike if the new wages scale wasn’t approved as a whole package.