Collective Action

Employees of City Blu, which collects waste and transports it to the Costa Brava landfill, south of Beirut, have been on strike since the beginning of April. Milad Mouawad, the CEO of City Blu, told L’Orient Today that the reasons for the garbage pile-up are financial. "Our workers have been on strike since the beginning of the month… The banks are not giving them their salaries and therefore they are unable to collect them,” Mouawad said. “We were in the process of securing a deal about the salaries so that they could withdraw them in cash from the bank,” Mouawad also said, adding that instead, “Banque du Liban imposed withdrawal limits on banks, this means for us an extra charge of 33 percent to be paid, so that all wages can be withdrawn.” In other words, the payment of the salaries of employees, which total a minimum of LL5 billion, “would cost us LL1.65 billion more in total, which we cannot afford,” he said.

On Monday, Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in a Tweet after meeting with Environment Minister Nasser Yassine, MP Amin Sharri (Beirut II, Hezbollah) and the head of the Associations of Municipalities of Beirut’s Southern Suburbs Mohamad Dergham that he called BDL and asked it to “increase the liquidity for the two companies [Ramco and City Blu],” who are responsible for collecting waste in Beirut and its surrounding areas.

On Tuesday 5 April, City Blu, a private company that collects waste in Beirut and its surrounding areas, resumed work, a spokesperson for the company told L’Orient Today on Friday. Mouawad also said that his workers decided to get back on duty after Bank Du Liban’s decision to increase the withdrawal limit in banks for his company to LL5 billion which allows him to pay his employees their full wages.