On May 8, the Union Coordinating Body (UCB) started its seven-day strike for all public sector departments in Lebanon. The UCB has set May 14 as the “day of the big explosion.” In effect, the UCB rejected the parliamentary subcommittee’s proposals to find a solution to the dilemma of the “ranks and salaries scale.”

The UCB is demanding a “full victory.” It rejected proposals to increase wages by 30-60% and insists on its basic demands: a 120% wage increase. The UCB also rejects the subcommittee’s proposal to fund the scale through tax measures totaling 1.7422 trillion Lebanese pounds ($1.16 billion), because the UCB argues that 60% of the new tax revenues would affect products and services used by all citizens.

Thus, according to the UCB, the subcommittee and the political class behind it have violated the principle of the welfare state and have surrendered to the interests of the “money whales” — i.e., big companies and Lebanese banks.

In reality, the subcommittee’s proposal and the response of the UCB, which represents workers’ rights, were a missed opportunity. The two sides entered into what looks like a dialogue of the deaf, reminiscent of the sterile, anachronistic debates between left and right that are characterized more by ideology and tactics than pragmatism and reform.