Towards a “Union” for foreign domestic workers amidst threats from the Ministry of Labor

A conference aiming to create a trade union for foreign domestic workers was convened yesterday.  Participants chose the name of their syndicates to be “the General Union for Cleaning and Social Care Workers”.  The event took place despite threats from the Ministry of Labor which attempted to break it whilst threatening to resort to security forces for that matter.  The Ministry noted that such a trade union is in violation of Lebanese laws.  The current Minister of Labor, Sejaan Azzi, threatened the organizers directly notably the National Federation of Trade Union of Workers and Employees in Lebanon (FENASOL) ,who took the responsibility of organising and hosting the new trade union.  Legal activists Nizar Saghieh rejected warnings and consider these to be in violation of trade union rights.  Saghieh added that no crime has been committed and no law in the penal code has been violated.  The Conference was held at the headquarters of the FENASOL and included 350 workers of various nationalities as well as ambassadors and diplomats from Ethiopia, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in addition to leaders from the FENASOL and representatives from the ILO and International Trade Union Confederation.  The aim of the conference was to set up a trade union organisation which would defend the rights of this category of workers.

The Ministry of Labor is expected to issue a statement responding to this action. Meanwhile, a high level representative of the Ministry considered that “people involved in this action have no representation capacity and what happened was in violation of the law and those responsible will be held accountable”.  He added that “nobody has the right to set up a trade union unless he/she is a Lebanese national and that domestic workers are excluded from the mandate of the present labor law and are not authorized to set up a trade union”.

(Source: As-Safir and Al-Akhbar 26 January 2015)