Giving the Palestinian refugees the right to work would benefit Lebanon and the refugees, says Franklin Lamb* in Beirut
"These are humanitarian, social and ethical duties, and the Lebanese state must assume the responsibility of providing them to our Palestinian brothers and sisters. Lebanon will not dodge these duties, which must be crystal-clear and not subject to any misinterpretation. The international community also has to bear the responsibility that our Palestinian guests will have the right to go back to their homeland, Palestine, with Jerusalem as their capital." -- Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri during the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC) meeting at the Grand Serail in Beirut on 29 June 2010The vote to grant the right to work to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is currently too close to call, even as the most serious debate ever held in Lebanon on this subject builds momentum. If last week's hero in the Palestinian refugee camps was the Druze MP Walid Jumblatt, this week's hero is Al-Hariri. The political sands in the Lebanese parliament and cabinet continue to shift, as regional powers weigh in and in the absence of reliable vote pledges. In the parliamentary vote to grant civil rights to the Palestinian refugees, 65 votes are needed among MPs from a total of 128.
A main argument that continues to be made by Lebanese MPs who oppose granting civil rights to Lebanon's Palestinians is that allowing them "privileges" would lead to their naturalisation and settlement. By this, it is meant that the refugees might get too comfortable in Lebanon and not want to return to Palestine. This is a false, but potent, shibboleth as many academic and NGO studies have shown. Unfortunately, it continues to resonate given Lebanon's current political atmosphere, particularly within Lebanon's Christian community.
The granting of the right to work, decoupled from permanent settlement in Lebanon, is the subject of the current public debate. Unfortunately, those in parliament opposed to granting civil rights to Palestinians have increased the volume and shrillness of their claims that civil rights mean naturalisation and citizenship and that they will affect the domestic sectarian balance.
Both claims are false, and Lebanon, as a signatory of all the major international human rights treaties and bound to implement others based on principles of customary international law, has an obligation to respect the basic rights of all persons legally residing on its territory. This is purely a question of the respect for human rights, ensuring that refugees can live in dignity without discrimination. Granting Palestinian refugees these elementary rights is distinct from Lebanon's obligations vis-à-vis its own citizens. The granting of civil rights to Palestine refugees neither entitles them to citizenship, nor obliges the Lebanese state to grant them citizenship, and the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon do not seek -- and have never sought -- Lebanese citizenship.
Since June 2010, another argument against granting the right to work to the Palestinian refugees has been surfacing, and the Phalange Party leader and former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel and his allies, and even some of his fellow Maronites who are competing with him for support in the dwindling Christian community, have issued warnings.
As Gemayel told a Phalange Party gathering last week, "Lebanon's economy cannot sustain granting these privileges to Palestinians. It will damage Lebanon's economy. Lebanon does not have enough money. Instead, the international community must take over this issue and find a solution. Anyway, the problem requires more study before we act hastily."
As Salvatore Lombardo, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told key Lebanese leaders on 30 June during a conference with the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC), "let's not forget that this will have a huge impact on Lebanon's economy and stability. Lebanon will gain, since it will have a workforce that will invest here." Meanwhile, UNRWA itself has recently announced a $113 million deficit, forcing it to further curtail shrinking health and education services in the camps.
Abdullah Abdullah, the Palestinian ambassador to Lebanon, has joined virtually all Palestinians in the country in denying any intent to obtain naturalisation or political rights. "All the Palestinians want is the right to work like any other foreign nationals," he said.
The Washington and Beirut-based Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, and those in Lebanon and internationally who are working to secure civil rights for Palestinian refugees, advocate a rights-based approach to the refugees, based on international legal norms and universal moral and religious teachings. While these arguments are sufficient in themselves, it is also worth emphasising the benefits that the Lebanese economy will reap from access to the Palestinian refugee labour market.
At the time of their exodus from Palestine, only four years after Lebanon's independence from the French in 1943, Palestinian assets brought into Lebanon were estimated at four times the value of the Lebanese economy. Ever since, periods of economic expansion have greatly benefited from Palestinian capital being invested in the country. Today, Palestinian refugees contribute massively to the Lebanese economy, through active engagement in the black market, through their membership of the informal labour force, or through daily economic consumption.
There are also the millions of dollars of financial contributions made by international organisations, such as UN specialised agencies, plus donor countries and NGOs, who are assisting the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Various studies have concluded that Palestinians account for 10 per cent of all consumption in Lebanon, with food, healthcare and rent being main expenditures.
More than 90 per cent of Palestinian refugees spend all their income in Lebanon, contributing directly to the Lebanese economy. Allowing them to work will, it is estimated by the International Labour Organisation, double this figure and dramatically spur growth. Current financial benefits to the Lebanon economy from the country's Palestinian guests include the fact that as a large percentage of Lebanese continue to leave the country for study and employment, this creates gaps in Lebanon's economy, as well as a steady demand for skilled and unskilled labour in the Lebanese labour market, that Palestinian refugees are willing and able to fill.
Even so, the economic benefits of full and legal participation by Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese labour market have been willfully underestimated, as a result of political resistance to granting them basic rights.
In contrast to the non-Palestinian work force, Palestinians represent a numerically modest fraction and pose no threat to job opportunities for Lebanese employees. Indeed, granting them the right to work, which includes improving working conditions and safeguards for Palestinians currently working in the so-called informal sector (i.e., illegal employment or on the black market, rendering them potentially liable for exploitation, dismissal, fines and/or jail), will also benefit the Lebanese who are forced to compete against below minimum-wage earners who are non-Lebanese.
Palestinian workers constitute only some three to five per cent of the total work force in Lebanon, which is estimated at around 1.1 million. The size of the foreign labour force, excluding Palestinians, is conservatively estimated at 600,000. Estimates for the number of Syrian labourers vary from 200,000 to one million. The Palestinian labour force is between 55,000 and 85,000.
Most of the Palestinians who find work do so in the country's 12 refugee camps. Palestinians work mainly in services, instruction, industry, transport and agriculture, not generally the jobs most Lebanese are employed in or would accept to enter. For example, the construction sector employs 19 per cent of all Palestinian workers, and only 0.8 per cent of all Lebanese. Manufacturing employs 13 per cent of the Palestinian workforce and only 8.5 per cent of the Lebanese. Agriculture employs 11 per cent of the Palestinian workers, and less than two per cent of Lebanese.
In Lebanon, agricultural workers are excluded from the application of the employment laws. Construction and agriculture, two of the main sectors in which Palestinians work, employ mostly workers paid on a daily basis. Legislation granting the right to work to Palestinians will not significantly affect this group of employees.
Despite the fact that Lebanon's restrictive policies were meant to exclude Palestinians from the labour market, they have not kept the refugees idle. Most Palestinian households report at least one person per household who works. The fact that Palestinians are already working, albeit informally and sometimes illegally, indicates that legalising their status and providing them with the full right to work would not cause a loss of jobs available for Lebanese citizens, but only the regularisation of the current situation for the protection of both.
At present, to obtain a work permit, the employee must have a work contract. This poses a major challenge for Palestinians, especially in occupations associated with a high turnover of employers. A work permit can be cancelled at any time in favour of a Lebanese worker. Another issue is the validity of the permit, which lasts only two years. Because of these and numerous other administrative restrictions, only around two per cent of all Palestinian workers hold work permits.
As noted above, Lebanon granted 136,000 foreigners work permits in 2009, and only 261 of them were Palestinian. Only 11 per cent of Palestine refugee workers have a written contract. Most do not have paid vacation or sick leave. Occupational injuries are not covered by UNRWA health services. Of the Palestinian male workers who stop working, 70 per cent do so for health reasons.
Every country has the legitimate right to protect the interests of its nationals. This can be done through conditioning the provision of rights to foreigners on the basis of the enjoyment of the same rights for its citizens in the country of origin of the foreigners. But applying this principle of reciprocity to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, who are stateless, means effectively denying them the right to work. Lebanon, which is a state party to the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has a duty to ensure that the rights of all individuals within its territorial jurisdiction, including non-nationals, are respected. Discrimination on the basis of a person being stateless is prohibited under the UN Covenant.
The right to work is essential for the realisation of other human rights, and it forms an inseparable and inherent part of human dignity. Every individual has the right to work, allowing him or her to live in dignity. The right to work contributes, at the same time, to the survival of the individual and to that of her/his family, Moreover, insofar as work is freely chosen or accepted, it enhances a family's development and recognition within the community.
Granting the right to work to Palestinian refugees is part of Lebanon's obligations under international law and its enactment will benefit Lebanon's economy.
* The author is director of Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, a board member of the Sabra Shatila Foundation and a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon.
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