BEIRUT: Parliament held Tuesday a crucial session over the civil servants’ disputed wage hike bill, as public schools and administrators went on strike to pressure lawmakers to endorse the bill.

 

Ahead of the session, the head of the Union Coordination Committee, Hanna Gharib, handed in a memo including the committee’s demands about the scale to Parliament’s Secretary-General Adnan Daher.

 

Civil servants and teachers also rallied outside Parliament urging lawmakers to approve the salary scale without dividing it, paying it in installments or otherwise reducing it, or failing to approve the same 121 percent pay hike granted to judges and Lebanese University teachers.

 

The UCC has threatened to escalate their street protests, including an open-ended strike, if the salary scale draft law is not approved by MPs.

 

Several parliamentary blocs have warned against approving the salary scale without a thorough discussion of means to fund the salary increase and a clear strategy to do so.

 

The salary scale is estimated to cost the cash-strapped state Treasury more than $1.6 billion annually.