Jordan Labour Watch calls for halting amendment to Labour Law

AMMAN — The Jordan Labour Watch has called on Parliament to halt the amendment of Article 2 of the Labour Law based on the temporary law written by the government in 2010, which is currently being reviewed by the Lower House Labour Committee. 

The proposed amendment is aimed at removing the phrase “group of employees” from the article’s definition of the concept “collective labour dispute”, so that any conflict arising between employers and workers is handled by a labour union.

“The majority of the workers in Jordan are deprived from the right to form a trade union,” Director of the Jordan Labour Watch Ahmad Awad told The Jordan Times, noting that the organisation has recently forwarded its recommendations to the Lower House Labour Committee on the proposed amendments to the Labour Law. 

Regarding the regulations on trade unions, the expert said that “all relevant rulings prevent workers from establishing unions freely, thus depriving them from their right to bargain in the event of a work dispute”, adding that “this distorts the relations between workers and employers turning them against the interests of employees”.

Awad noted that Article 98 of The Labour Law “doesn’t allow a group of employees to form a trade union without the permission of the tripartite formed by the government, the employers and other trade unions,” noting that “this has prevented the formation of new labour unions in the past 40 years”.

Asked about the outcome of current disputes in the event of the approval of the amendment, the expert stressed the need to refer to the original law, highlighting that “workers shall keep their rights to intervene and use the available means to resolve their differences on working conditions with employers in labour trials”.

Awad added that such an amendment would create “inconsistencies” with the definition of the collective labour contracts in the same article, which recognises a group of employees as one of the parties involved in the contract.