Lire absolument: Lebanon Unlimited: Neoliberalism Dominates the Workplace, Nizar Saghieh
▻http://english.legal-agenda.com/article.php?id=709&folder=articles&lang=en
Before reviewing the abundant evidence of this neoliberal trend, this article will point out some distinguishing characteristics of the post-war period that explain the substantial decline in worker protections. The most prominent factors are as follows:
1. The flooding of the Lebanese labor market with foreign labor, and the subjection of this labor to the restrictive conditions of the sponsorship system. This led to the rise of employment ties that afford no legal protection under circumstances in which workers’ positions are weak, and all the power is concentrated in the hands of employers. In addition to the negative effects that this large influx of foreign labor had on Lebanese labor and the negotiating power of the union movement, its spread led to the formation of an extremely negative model of work relations, paving the way for an enormous decline of cultural values pertaining to employment;
2. The decline in the presence of a discourse of rights in public discourse due to the growth of partisanship, and the power-sharing regulations that accompanied it. This facilitated the fragmentation and dispersion of the working class by dividing its members along political-sectarian lines. Demands for rights became marginal, rarely enjoying public attention. The best evidence of this may be the absence of any mentionable reaction to the suspension for more than a year in 2011-2012, of the labor arbitration councils, and hence the entire labor law;
3. The increasingly intimate alliance between the political class that emerged from bitter partisan rivalry and the owners of large capital. The recent debates over the pay scales bill and the bill to liberalize old rent contracts very clearly reflected this alliance. While partisanship has subordinated the working class by making it dependent and part of political-sectarian projects, the growing alliance between the political class and capital owners has, in stark contrast, created a consensus over the limit beyond which political disputes end, and processes of quota politics and dividing up the spoils begin; and
4. The decline and factionalization of union forces. This factor is a logical result of the aforementioned factors, and has made one of the most significant and direct contributions to the growth of the neoliberal phenomenon. As the reforms and gains achieved in the pre-war era were not possible without the impetus provided by union activism,[1] the decline of labor union activity facilitated the attacks on these reforms and gains.
These are the main factors that paved the way for neoliberalism to dominate the workplace with weak, almost nonexistent opposition from the social forces affected.
(via Mona Harb)