The Committee of Part-Time Lecturers at the Lebanese University issued a response to the statement published by the Executive Board of the League of Full-Time Professors at the Lebanese University, stating: “The Committee of Part-Time Lecturers is a legitimate and lawful committee, which arose as a result of chronic failure to effectively defend the rights of a broad segment of university professors. It never came to confront anyone, but rather to fill a real representative vacuum that lasted for many years. The committee derives its legitimacy from being democratically elected by the part-time lecturers according to the highest standards of representation, and it represents a category that exceeds in number and weight the segment represented by the League by many times, as it represents the most affected segment, and the one most waiting for long-overdue justice.”
The committee continued, saying: “The attempt to limit the concept of legitimacy to the narrow administrative law, and to ignore trade union and representative legitimacy, does not reflect the reality of the university or the nature of trade union struggle, as the legitimacy derived from representing the collective will of the contracted professors precedes any other formal description and does not contradict it. The Committee of Part-Time Lecturers has received practical and official recognition from all the authorities concerned with the Lebanese University file, from the presidency of the university to the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, to the presidency of the government, and even to His Excellency the President of the Republic, who received the committee and dealt with it as a legitimate committee representing the contractors, which cannot be overlooked or denied.”
The committee affirmed that: “Any decision taken by the committee, including the declaration of a strike, is based exclusively on the will and interest of the part-time lecturers, who are the direct stakeholders in the issue, and the first entitled to determine the forms of their struggle, after all promises and procrastination have been exhausted, and the wait has been long without tangible results. The committee affirms that its move does not target the League or the full-time professors, but rather aims at legitimate pressure to approve the tenure file and do justice to thousands of professors who have served the university for many years, often in difficult circumstances and without any job stability.”
In conclusion, the committee reiterated its adherence to “the unity of the academic body at the Lebanese University,” but at the same time expressed its rejection of “confiscating the voice of contractors or questioning the legitimacy of their struggle,” stressing its continuation in its actions “until achieving the goal for which it was established: approving the tenure file and doing justice to contractors.”
