Lebanese Parliament Debates Minimum Wage, Cost of Living and Syrian Workers’ Situation

The Public Health, Labor and Social Affairs Committee, chaired by Representative Bilal Abdullah, met today, Monday, to discuss the issue of the minimum wage, the cost of living, and the situation of Syrian workers in Lebanon. Recently.

The head of the Public Health Committee, Representative Bilal Abdullah, said in an interview with the “Lebanese Debate”: “In the session, we discussed the issue of raising the minimum wage and its impact on the issue of private sector income, especially since this decision came with the efforts of the Ministry of Labor and the agreement of the owners of the social contract, i.e. employers and workers, and with what This has a positive impact on the income of the Social Security Fund, which allowed it to raise tariffs, and certainly the issue of the minimum wage does not meet people’s needs, but it alleviates suffering.

And he adds: “We set the Minister of Labor, Mustafa Bayram, in the achievement that was achieved, with the available capabilities, raising the minimum wage and its accessories, which have become at the minimum level in the range of 15 million, between 9 million and 6 million, and some details as a minimum for any worker, we are talking about the private sector As a rule, this must apply later, to the procedure and contractors of the public sector, and Minister Bayram has efforts in this file and he had an exceptional effort in fairness to the public sector.

And he continues, “We, as a Parliamentary Health Committee, issued a recommendation to allow the Social Security Administration to bypass all administrative routines with regard to people’s health. We also discussed the issue of state employees’ cooperative contributions that raised tariffs, as the staff of public administrators and official professors now have almost comprehensive health coverage for the state employees’ cooperative.”

He notes that “we discussed with Minister Bayram the issue of Syrian labor in Lebanon and the need to organize it, and we touched on it in part, but unfortunately it seems that there are some Lebanese jobs or professions that the Syrians and the Lebanese engage in that they do not work in, including agriculture, construction, etc…”.

Abdullah points out that “the issue of Syrian labor requires discussion in the government, so that the priority today is to find a unified vision regarding this matter,” saying: “We touched on it with regard to protecting the Lebanese labor force, but it seems that there is a problem with the issue of partnership companies, which we will complete in Second encounters.