Contract workers invite EDL to retrieve key files

BEIRUT: EDL contract workers Tuesday called on the company’s executives to send a delegation to retrieve documents from the firm’s headquarters that management says are necessary to resolve the ongoing row over the number of strikers who will be offered full-time employment.

“The committee announces that it is ready ... to facilitate the entry of a delegation from the institution’s administration to complete the name lists of bill collectors upon the Civil Service Council’s request,” the workers said in a statement.

In April, the Civil Service Council asked EDL to provide the number of contract workers and bill collectors that needed to be hired as full-timers at the public company.

EDL sent a memo to the council the first week of August, stating that it only needed to hire 897 of the approximately 2,000 contract workers and bill collectors.

As a result, the workers launched a strike on Aug. 9, blocking EDL’s headquarters in Mar Mikhael to demand the company’s executives reconsider the decision.

In light of the ongoing dispute, and after the workers continuously argued that EDL does not take into consideration all the bill collectors’ lists, the CSC requested EDL’s complete list of bill collectors.

“The CSC told EDL to provide the full lists, and the latter responded by saying that the headquarters are occupied and we cannot reach the documents,” the workers’ committee leader Lubnan Makhoul told The Daily Star. “So we are telling them that we will open the doors, let them enter and provide all the names to see what the CSC will say.”

“We will accept any decision by the CSC, even if it decides to decrease the controversial 897 number.”

According to the contract workers, an earlier study at EDL indicated that the number of employees needed was more than 1,300, which is why they are confident in leaving the decision to an “impartial third party.”

In their statement, the workers said the move should be in coordination with a parliamentary commission, to resume discussions on Law 287 that was issued by Parliament in April to employ the contract workers.

They suggested that the commission be headed by MP Mohammad Qabbani, the head of the Water and Energy parliamentary committee, or by another lawmaker that the two sides can agree upon.

“The committee pledges to provide all facilitations for the delegation chosen by the institution’s administration,” the statement said, “and vows to not save any effort that could bring an end to the crisis.”