SIDON: Hundreds of employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in south Lebanon staged a one-hour strike on Monday at 1 p.m. to condemn the organization’s social, health and educational services. The strike, which took place in front of UNRWA’s office in Sidon, was called for by the organization’s labor union in an attempt to improve the services and the amount of job opportunities offered to Palestinian refugees.
The head of the UNRWA’s Labor Union in Lebanon, Mousse al-Nema voiced his distress since the UNRWA administration refused to respond to the union’s repetitive demands “to increase the end of service indemnities from one month to two for each year of service in accordance with Lebanese laws.”
Nema added that UNRWA’s employees ran out of savings due to the economic crisis, which reflected negatively on their families social, health and educational conditions.
Nema warned that if the workforce’s demands were not met by the UNRWA administration, the union would take further escalatory steps to achieve its objectives.
Following the strike, the union filed a petition to UNRWA’s higher commissioner urging him to raise the budget of the organization in Lebanon.