BEIRUT: Electricite du Liban announced Wednesday that it would file a lawsuit against three leaders of the protesting contract workers over blocking its facilities’ entrances and defaming its executives.
Lebanon’s public electricity company said in a statement that it would file suit against “L. M., B.B. and A. S (who are previous contract workers in the institutions) ... over closing the company’s doors, banning customers from entering, and defaming the institution’s board of directors.”
The three contract workers sued by EDL are Lebnan Makhoul, the head of the workers’ union, and Bilal Bajou and Ahmad Shoeib, both workers. Bajou and Shoeib have appeared, along with Makhoul, on different occasions at news conferences and have accused EDL Chairman Kamal Hayek of corruption and fraud.
“In this cause, our ceiling is death,” Makhoul told The Daily Star in response to EDL’s decision. “And when you put death as your ceiling, such events are reduced to being mere details.”
Shoeib echoed Makhoul, saying that he would consider the lawsuit a “medal of honor” for defending “the poor workers against the violation of their rights.”
Electricite du Liban’s administration had sent a letter to the State Prosecution office Tuesday, asking for security forces to intervene to end the contract workers’ protests in the company’s buildings.
The contract workers have been carrying out protests over the past week at all EDL offices, preventing employees from entering the buildings. They are demanding full-time employment at EDL for each of the nearly 2,000 workers in line with a law passed by Parliament in April, but EDL has only agreed to hire 897.
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