Transportation fees: illegal measure since 1995

 
Just like education and health care, public transportation is a duty incumbent upon the state. Therefore, employers shouldn’t have to pay transportation fees unless they hire an employee required to commute during working hours.  

In Lebanon, transportation fees saw the light in 1995 during a meeting between former PM Rafik Hariri, the then-head of the Association of Lebanese Industrialists Jack Sarraf and the then-head of the GLC Elias Abou Rizk. The meeting amounted to an agreement to raise the minimum wage to 300,000 LBP and pay the employees transportation fees as well as scholarships which are social benefits.

Sarraf told LBCI that the 1995 agreement stipulated that transportation fees will only be a temporary measure, until the public transportation plan is settled.

The former Head of the National Social Security Fund lawyer George Khadij told LBCI that transportation fees are included in neither the labor law, nor salaries. Khadij stressed that this issue violates the labor law that says a salary should be sufficient to fulfill the needs of the worker and his family and no less than the minimum wage.  

The latest agreement sealed between employers and employees did not include a raise in the transportation fees that run up to 8,000 LBP daily. In fact, employees consider this an asset they held on to while employers regard it as a present that they can dodge at any time.