Beirut: On Thursday, workers at Tele Liban, the state-owned television station in Lebanon, went on an indefinite strike over unpaid wages and social assistance.
The news and programme departments ceased operations. Nevertheless, technicians kept playing recorded music "to keep this station on the Lebanese media map," an employee claimed.
The strike, according to Mirna Chidiac, president of the Tele Liban employees syndicate, comes after a protracted process of reviews and "failed attempts to receive our dues."
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Despite the currency collapse in 2019, she said, employees are still receiving salaries based on an exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds to the dollar.
At Tele Lebanon, there are 200 employees, and some of them need to borrow money to get to the station's headquarters in Beirut so they can keep working, she said.
"The government has approved dues for all public sector employees to help them, but Tele Liban employees continue to receive LBP1.5 million, or about $16 in today's dollars. Before the financial crisis, this salary was worth $1,000.
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The salary of a worker in today's money, which is LBP5 million, or $3,500, is not even $55.
The Ministry of Finance informed the channel's management on Wednesday that "work is underway to transfer the owed funds," but that this "may take days."
The finance minister must decide whether to transfer credits worth LBP17 billion from the general budget reserve to pay employee dues from November 2021 through the end of May 2023.
Chidiac expressed scepticism, though, that the wage promises would be kept.
She claimed that the issue had persisted for two years and appeared to be an intentional attempt to ignore Tele Lebanon.
"The Ministry of Finance receives the transactions back and forth. Whose benefit are they being obstructed for and why?
The interim information minister, Ziad Makari, declined to refute charges that the administration is disregarding the rights of Tele Lebanon employees.
"I have pushed for adding the names of Tele Liban employees to the list of the public sector employees so they can benefit from social assistance and other salary increases, and I obtained a government decision on this," he claimed. However, transactions are slow because there aren't many employees showing up for work in state institutions.
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The last time workers went on strike was a year ago, which resulted in the suspension of all production save for coverage from three official headquarters and the evening news.
Promises made at the time, however, have not been kept.
Some workers think there is an effort to marginalise the station in advance of its closure.
Celebrities from Tele Lebanon, including Chef Antoine and other media figures, have publicly protested their pay and worries that the station might be shut down.