The General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (CGTL) (in French Confédération Générale des Travailleurs Libanais (CGTL), in Arabic الإتحاد العمالي العام في لبنان) is a national trade union center in Lebanon. It was founded in 1958, and has a membership of 200,000. The original president of the confederation, Antoine Bechara, was president from 1983 to 1991 and created its logo.
General Confederation of Lebanese Workers | |
| Confédération Générale des Travailleurs du Liban | |
| Location | |
|---|---|
| Members | 200,000 |
Key people | Ghassan Ghosn, president |
During the 1996 economic crisis the Confederation of Trade Unions (CTU) called a general strike on 28 November with the slogan “Bread, Education, Freedom”. The demonstrations were broken up by the army and police with 50 detained.[1]
The following spring Ilyas Abu Rizq, the newly re-elected President of the Lebanese General Labour Confederation (GLC) was arrested by the security forces and charged with “usurping political authority “ and “disseminating false Information”. He was re-arrested in May and June and was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He was replaced as leader of the GLC by Ghanim Zughbi in a ‘sham’ election. Zughbi called a general strike which was mostly ignored. He was criticised for failing to condemn security service violence. Abu Rizk launched a rival organisation the Independent GLC which was recognised by the ILO and supported by the National Federation of Workers and Employees, the largest member organisation of the GLC.[2]
References
edit- ICTUR; et al., eds. (2005). Trade Unions of the World (6th ed.). London, UK: John Harper Publishing. ISBN 0-9543811-5-7.
- ^ Middle East International No 539, 6 December 1996; Publishers Lord Mayhew, Dennis Walters MP; Giles Trendle p.15
- ^ Middle East International No 564, 5 December 1997; Reinoud Leenders p.13
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