BEIRUT: The head of trade unions threatened Tuesday to go on strike unless the government of Prime Minister Najib Mikati abides by its decision to increase workers’ salaries.

“If Cabinet fails to abide by a decision it had previously taken [in October], we will go on strike,” Ghassan Ghosn, head of the General Labor Confederation, told the Voice of Lebanon radio station.

Ghosn criticized Labor Minister Charbel Nahhas, claiming he wanted “to force the government to adopt a draft law ... which will be rejected by the Shura Council.”

Nahhas told The Daily Star earlier this month that his plan, if approved, would increase the monthly minimum wage to LL860,000, while salaries up to LL1 million would see a 17 percent increase and salaries above LL1 million would increase by LL170,000.

However, those who earn more than LL1 million will get the 17 percent increase on the first 1 million only. “If someone for example makes LL3 million he or she will get 17 percent on the first LL1 million only,” Nahhas said in a Dec. 1 interview with The Daily Star.

His suggestions specified that the minimum wage should be hiked to LL860,000. This number was reached after a transportation allowance of 236,000 was added to the current LL500,000 minimum wage, then 17 percent of the new total was added it.

Based on this, all transportation allowances, not only for the minimum wage, will be part of the basic salary.

However, Ghosn has insisted that Cabinet should redraft its last October wage increase decree.

A mid-October wage increase decree averted what may have turned into the country’s largest-ever labor strike. The proposal suggested a LL200,000 increase for salaries under LL1 million and a LL300,000 rise for salaries between LL1 million and LL1.8 million.