Does the minimum wage rise to $ 300?

Maria Moussa wrote in “Call of the Homeland”:

With the stability of the political situation after the election of a president for the republic and the formation of a new government, the file of wages in the private and public sector is due to the forefront again after it was forgotten in the drawers of the previous government, which all its decisions remained within the framework of empty speech, and the salaries remained the same without any increases despite the great economic inflation and kindness between the salaries of public and private sector.

In the year 2024, the index, economic bodies and free professions unions met with the Minister of Labor at the time, and it was decided to raise the minimum wage for the private sector to the limits of 18 million Lebanese pounds, or about $ 200 after demanding that it be raised to 55 million pounds.

However, the minister refused on the pretext of not salaries money, provided that every private sector worker is also given a high cost of living of 9 million Lebanese pounds, which is estimated at $ 100 on the basis of the black market dollar 89,500 Lebanese pounds.

But compensation for the high cost of living was not given to workers, and the minimum wage was maintained for 18 million, while it is supposed to become 27 million pounds. (About $ 300).

However, the great inflation preceded the salaries that are no longer sufficient until the first week of the month. The public sector was not better than the private. The 2024 budget was seen several increases on public sector salaries, but it did not enter into the core of the salary, which could constitute a major crime against workers, specifically those who approached their retirement from the job. The 2025 budget came to confirm the crime.

It indicates that the policy followed with public sector workers has not changed despite the increases that were placed under the study (6 salaries) to give it during the year.

On the other hand, the head of the General Labor Union in Lebanon, Bishara Al -Asmar, believes that with the start of the improvement of the situation in Lebanon, the current government must return to the decisions of the previous government last April, and the implementation of the item related to granting the amount of nine million pounds as a living for workers in the private sector, who number about 450 thousand workers and are subject to the Labor Law.

Al -Asmar pointed out that with the removal of the second article of the item related to the wages, that is, the increase in the high cost of living, a complaint was submitted to the State Shura Council to consider the injustice subsequent to the workers.

As the decree issued in April 2024, which raised the minimum wage to 18 million pounds, was incomplete, as the second article of it, which stipulates the granting of a high cost of living worth nine million pounds for employees.

After several reviews with the stakeholders, Al -Asmar confirmed that the issuance of the ruling is close and could be within days. Al -Asmar pointed out that the minimum wage in the public sector has been 900 thousand pounds since 2019 and has not changed. All workers receive their salaries according to the salary of 2019, which necessitates the difference between the workers in the private and the public.

Here, Al -Asmar indicates the need to correct wages and enter aid at the core of the salary, because end -of -service compensation is still on the basis of a dollar of 1500 pounds, which reflects negatively on the compensation of the Social Security Fund.

On the movements of retirees in the street, Al -Asmar stressed that they are 100% right because their salaries have not yet reached a quarter of what they were receiving in 2019, and in every movement they will be with them because they are the largest segment that did not do justice to them. They do not receive a production allowance, no transfer allowance, not even external aid.

On the next stage, Al -Asmar said: “We are looking forward to economic growth in light of the restoration of power and openness to the outside. Everything that talks about contacts with the International Monetary Fund will reflect positively on tourism in the summer, which may stimulate the economy. He concluded by saying: “We look forward to calm and stability because they lead to the economic renaissance.”

For his part, Minister of Labor Mohamed Haider stressed that the first goal of the Ministry is to correct wages and will meet the Minister of Finance Yassin Jaber to reassess the wage and develop a minimum and the high cost of living in light of the chaos in the dollar and the prices escape and the inability of the Ministry of Economy to monitor all commercial stores, given the lack of the human apparatus that it suffers from.