In response to a complication facing the guaranteed payment of their wages in the next couple of months, the technicians at Beirut-Rafik Hariri International Airport are warning that they will eventually resort to abandoning their night shifts at the airport.
In a statement, they cited the “lack of financial allocations in the General Directorate of Civil Aviation’s budget for November and December of 2020” for their warning of ending their commitment to night shifts.
This shortage in funds will require work to transfer an appropriation from the general budget reserve to the directorate’s budget so that its unit leaders can assign the technicians who will do night work over the next two months, the statement indicated.
And if the necessary allocations are not made before the end of the current month, the technicians say they will be obliged to “discontinue providing night shift work and to only stick to the day shift during November and December of 2020.”
Such an action would have a serious impact on air navigation services and effectively “stop them at night at the airport and in the Lebanese airspace.”
The airport‘s technicians, as per the law, work day and night shifts, 7 times a week, and on holidays.
On that note, the technicians said in the statement that ceasing to provide night shift work is “not a purpose nor an objective, but rather in accordance with the law that affirms that there is no work without pay.”
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