Sacked Syrian workers stage nationwide protests as government targets public sector
Ahlam Hassanien had been working as a manager at the state-run Syrian telecommunications company Syrian Telecom, providing a steady income to support her son and family over the past decade.
Although she earned only around $30 a month (500,000 Syrian pounds), her job was her main source of livelihood, allowing her to pursue her studies and work towards career advancement.
Now, her life has been turned upside down. The new authorities fired her - alongside thousands of other government employees - following the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's administration in late December.
She told Middle East Eye that she broke down in tears upon leaving her job and now struggles to make her payments, with little hope of securing work in the competitive private sector.
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“The bank warned me that I need to make my payments. But how can I afford that while also prioritising daily food, my son’s needs, and my final year at university as a law student?" she said.
'It wasn’t just a job with responsibilities: it was my only source of income, and my social life'
- Ahlam Hassanien, former state employee
She said that as the daughter and widow of Syrian army officers, she lost her job alongside all employees who lost a family member in the conflict. She added that she knew others who were dismissed for "unknown reasons".
“It wasn’t just a job with responsibilities: it was my only source of income, and my social life.
"Now, no one has taken over my position because nobody is qualified to handle the tasks," she said.
“We were not offered any compensation, and we are waiting for the judicial system to reopen so we can sue."
The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, which had run Syria since the 1960s, established a highly centralised economy which placed state-led development at the centre of its planning.
While President Hafez al-Assad abandoned some of the more explicit socialist policies in 1970 and his son Bashar brought in neoliberal reforms after taking office in 2000, much of the economy was still dominated by the public sector, which critics accused of being corrupt, inefficient and mismanaged.
Syria ranks 177th in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index, according to Transparency International, with jobs under the previous administration often allocated on a sectarian, familial or loyalty basis.
Led by Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the new government has pledged to further roll back the state's involvement in the economy, pledging privatisation and "a competitive free-market economy" in an attempt to crack down on corruption and bolster the country's economic growth even as it still suffers from punishing sanctions.
Economy Minister Basil Abdul Hanan told Reuters in January that they would begin privatising the 107 state-run industrial companies, which he said were mostly lossmaking, while keeping "strategic" energy and transport infrastructure in the public sector.
Finance Minister Mohammad Abazeed told Reuters that only 900,000 of the 1.3 million government employees on the books are actively working, while 400,000 are "ghost employees".
'The [new Syrian] government support totally the neoliberal paradigm'
- Joseph Daher, academic
Administrative Development Minister Mohammad Alskaf, for his part, told Reuters that the public sector needs no more than 550,000 to 600,000 workers.
Sacked employees have been holding nationwide demonstrations and are increasingly organising their efforts through social media, forming groups that resemble workers’ unions.
One such page, called Democratic Change Workers (DCW), sent MEE a two-page statement listing nine demands, including reinstating all dismissed employees and raising salaries.
The statement also strongly rejected the government’s plans to privatise the public sector.
“We will call for bigger protests if the government moves forward with privatisation,” a DCW representative told MEE, requesting anonymity for security reasons.
“There is a strong link between the public sector and poor people - people rely heavily on state aid, including hospitals, bakeries, fuel, education, electricity, and water. The state-run system has made life easier for them.”
He warned that most people without a job live in poverty, and that privatisation would make essential services unaffordable.
The United Nation agencies said in a recent report that 90 per cent of Syrians are living in poverty and half of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed or rendered dysfunctional.
It added that 75 per cent of the population now depends on some form of humanitarian aid, compared to only five per cent in the first year of the conflict.
In that light, the Syrian government's privatisation plans have come in for criticism, including by Sharaa's economist father Hussein - in a statement on Facebook he warned that the state-owned industries were a "national asset built over decades," and pointing out that when it came to inefficiency and corruption, "the issue is not with the public sector itself, but with the mismanagement that has plagued it."
Swiss-Syrian academic Joseph Daher, author of Syria After the Uprising: The Political Economy of State Resilience, warned that while corruption had riddled the public sector, privatisation and austerity measures - such as a planned end to bread subsidies - would push even more of the population into poverty.
"These austerity measures are accompanied by willingness to liberalise and privatise the economy and of state assets - the [new Syrian] government support totally the neoliberal paradigm," he told Middle East Eye.
He questioned how Abazeed had arrived at the figures he had publicly announced and said there should be a proper audit to evaluate the numbers of employees, the organisation of ministries and state companies and their socio-economic impact on society, as well as assess the "cost of subsidies and their socio-economic advantages and shortcomings.
"Until the public audit is terminated, all austerity measures and processes to end subsidies should be stopped," he said.
Protests ongoing
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that around 350 medical workers, including doctors, were fired from the state-financed medical sector. The organisation also shared photos on Facebook showing unsanitary conditions at Damascus Public Hospital.
Local reports indicate that 225 workers were recently dismissed from Aleppo's telecommunications company.
SOHR has reported that medical workers planned to stage a protest this week, following similar demonstrations by former employees across the country, while medical workers from Salamiyah Hospital, which serves the regions of Hama, Homs, and al-Raqqa, including long-term contractors with over 30 years of experience, protested last week after many were dismissed.
'All these actions are against the law, and we are preparing to take legal steps to restore our rights'
- Democratic Change Workers
In Damascus, firefighters who lost their jobs when the White Helmets civil defence group took over their positions have also protested, demanding reinstatement.
The DCW representative told MEE that their demands included holding corrupt officials accountable, arguing that all citizens suffered under the former regime.
“There should be a public committee to expose corrupt employees and scrutinise their work,” he said.
He said it was "our right" to know why people were being fired and why the decisions were not being taken by an independent committee or through the judicial system.
“Thousands of families have been affected, including those who have worked for decades and are now in their forties, making it difficult for them to change careers."
The DCW has branches in six provinces and has organised multiple protests, some drawing up to 400 participants.
Up to 250,000 dismissed
According to DCW, up to 250,000 workers have already lost their jobs, including those placed on "forced unpaid leave" for three months while authorities assess whether their positions are still needed.
The Worker System Law No. 50, issued in 2004 by Syria's parliament, does not contain any clauses allowing for placing workers on long-term leave or to be fired arbitrarily, leading the DCW to argue that the government's actions are illegal.
“All these actions are against the law, and we are preparing to take legal steps to restore our rights," said the representative.
The Syrian government has not responded to MEE’s enquiries about the mass firings or whether compensation will be provided.
Sharaa has said working up to elections in Syria could take up to four years. Daher argued that, therefore, the current transitional administration does not have the authority to make sweeping economic changes.
"Politically, this is a transitional government and should not be taking decisions affecting strategically the country's economic future, which they are doing - austerity measures, ending subsidies, privatisation of state assets, liberalisation of prices - they lack the political legitimacy to make such a decision," he said.
He said it was also necessary to widen democratic participation in the economy and society as a whole to avoid questions around Syria's future remaining a purely "elitist" issue.
"The inability of large sectors of the population to see how they will deal with their lives on a daily basis, to cover their essential needs, their rents, electricity, fees for school, etc, prevent their inclusion and participation in the struggles, for which they have a direct and objective interest to be successful," he explained.
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