The crisis of lack of air traffic controllers at Rafic Hariri International Airport has returned to threaten navigation at the airport, with the workers announcing that they will go on a partial strike if their demands are not met, and this is what is being worked on among the concerned officials who confirm that the airport’s movement will not stop.
The threat of strike, which has been repeated from time to time in recent years, is due to basic reasons related to the shortage of observers as a result of the referral of a large number of them to retirement and the failure to install successful observers for years due to linking the file to sectarian quotas.
And after the observers announced, on Thursday, their partial strike decision and to limit their work to daytime hours until eight in the evening, the head of the Parliamentary Works and Transportation Committee, Sajea Attia, quoted the head of the caretaker government, Najib Mikati, as working to find a solution to this problem, which will lead to the observers not carrying out their strike. According to his assertion, which was pointed out by a source at the airport, assuring to Asharq Al-Awsat that the airport’s movement has not and will not stop.
While Attia supported the observers’ demand, assuming that their warning comes as a matter of pressure, he told Asharq Al-Awsat: “In light of the government’s inability today to confirm the successful ones and its resort at this stage to contracting with several institutions, the solution will be temporary contracting with a number of observers.” Until employment,” explaining that “contracting will be with successful Lebanese observers and with foreigners if there is a shortage of specific jobs.” He pointed out that “funding for these salaries is ready, and it will be from the airport’s budget of $15 million,” stressing that the main goal remains the airport’s continued operation.
Representative Ibrahim Mneimneh was the first to reveal the proposal to bring in air observers from abroad, and pointed out that the Minister of Works and Transport, Ali Hamiyeh, told the deputies in the session of the Works Committee about bringing in air observers from the International Civil Aviation Organization, as a result of the failure to install successful air observers in the Civil Service Council, Their decree has been stuck since the era of President Michel Aoun, who refused to sign the decree; Because most of the successful are Muslims, as is the decree of forest guards under the pretext of “sectarian imbalance.”
He stressed that the cost of the Lebanese observer’s salary is, of course, less than the cost of the salary of the recruited foreign employee, recalling that “the root of the problem is the eligibility to install successful air controllers, and that the argument of sectarian balance is lost for employees from outside the first category, and it involves the usual sectarian quota mentality.” Emphasizing that “the Lebanese air traffic controllers are the first with their treasury money, and it is unreasonable for the quota mentality to be extended to replace the Lebanese competencies with foreign competencies.”
With Mneimneh’s support for the solution to contracting with successful Lebanese, stressing at the same time that sectarian standards should not stand as a barrier to their confirmation, especially since this criterion should not apply to them, he points out in his interview with Asharq Al-Awsat that Minister Hamiyah had indicated That the successful people need a license or work certificate, according to the standards of international systems, before starting their work, which is what is supposed to be worked on at this stage, and what the government must bear responsibility for.
In their statement, the observers said (Thursday): “We, who are the remaining air observers at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, warn of the situation that has resulted in a severe shortage in the number of observers working in the authority. As our number has become 13 observers (out of 57), including the heads of departments, sections and branches, we work in two separate centers to secure airport traffic 24 hours throughout the year.
The observers touched on the sectarian and political barriers that prevent the employment of successful observers, and they said: “We have become working with live meat, and we have become tired and exhausted as a result of working according to inhumane schedules, which are unacceptable either in Lebanon or internationally, schedules that exceed 300 hours per month without counting absence coverage.” the exceptional and the forced, with a reminder that most of us are over fifty; Meaning that each of us works for 4 or more observers, which is very dangerous and endangers the safety of air traffic.
And the statement added: “Since we are still facing barriers that we do not know what their background stands in the way of any solution we propose, and in the absence of solutions and the management dealt lightly with all the proposals that we put forward to save the situation, and out of our concern for the safety of air traffic and the safety of passengers, we state that we will abide starting from Next September 5, with shift schedules in which we secure work at the airport from seven in the morning until eight in the evening, provided that flights are scheduled in proportion to the capacity of the air traffic controller, which are schedules commensurate with our current number and take into account and maintain the safety of movement until the implementation of repairs Necessary… ».
2023-08-25 16:19:48
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