Lebanon Boosts Minimum Wage 74% After Union Threatens Protest
Lebanon agreed to increase the minimum wage by 74 percent, the first raise in three years, after unions rejected an earlier offer.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government agreed late yesterday to boost the wage to 868,000 pounds ($576) a month, Information Minister Walid Daouk said in a telephone interview.
The General Labor Confederation and other organizations had said they were not satisfied with the government’s Oct. 11 decision to raise the wage to 700,000 Lebanese pounds and threatened to strike this month unless it was revised. That agreement was held up amid opposition from some Cabinet members and an advisory committee.
The latest decision to increase the wage will probably avert a strike planned for Dec. 27, Ghassan Ghosn, head of the confederation, said in a phone interview today.
Lebanon’s last minimum wage increase was in 2008 when it was increased 67 percent, the first raise since 1996.
Today’s decision must be reviewed by the advisory council and published in the Official Gazette before it goes into force.
To contact the reporter on this story: Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon, at mderhally@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Louis Meixler at lmeixler@bloomberg.net.
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