Public, private sector employees entitled to full salary during COVID-19 work stoppage — Labour Ministry

AMMAN — All employees in the public and the private sectors have the right to receive their full salaries and cannot be laid off for as long as the days off announced by the government remain in effect, according to experts.

“This time off is not subtracted from employees’ salaries, nor from their credit of annual leaves, and this applies to the public and the private sectors,” Labour Ministry Spokesperson Ghaida Awamleh told The Jordan Times on Thursday over the phone.

Even if, hypothetically, the time off is extended again after April 15, the same conditions still apply, and any company that subtracts from its employees’ salaries in any way or fires anyone is in violation of the law, she said, adding “this is applicable to all types of employment”.

The government decided to give all the private and the public sector employees a four-week time off from work, extending from March 18 to mid-April, with the exception of various vital sectors, during which employees who are not working are paid their salaries in full.

However, many workers told The Jordan Times or posted on social media that they were given the option to opt for either an unpaid leave or a full salary for only 10 days followed by half of their salary for the remaining time off, among other forms of offers.

“This time off is due to an emergency, and it operates the same as official and religious holidays announced by the Cabinet, which is stated in Article 59 of the Labour Law,” Ahmad Awad, director of Phenix Centre for Economic Studies, told The Jordan Times.

“If a business is struggling under regular conditions, employers, under Article 50 of the Labour Law, can pay employees their full salary for the first 10 days of the business’ suspension and then half the salary in the 50 days that follow,” Awad said, noting that this article is not effective under the current exceptional times.

Awad added that the Defence Law and the curfew “do not impact the government’s decision for time off, nor cancel it in any way”, which keeps Article 59 in effect until the government announces otherwise.

“The private sector is damaged under these circumstances, and they can voice their demands to receive support in order to be able to pay workers, but they cannot mitigate their losses on the expense of employees,” Awad said.

He said that the Phenix Centre received a myriad of written and verbal complaints about institutions that exercised arbitrary dismissals, forcing employees to resign or to consider the time off as an unpaid leave, rendering workers without salaries, especially for March.

While the private sector is committed to adhering to social distancing to combat the spread of the coronavirus, Awad said the government ought to provide support as much as possible to enable the sector to face the challenges imposed on it rather than workers shoulder the responsibility.

“This is not a time for profit for the private sector, it is a period of preserving simple continuity and shouldering social responsibilities, and the thousands of private sector institutions that violate the rights of their workers to overcome the hindrances they faced are on a losing path,” he concluded.

Complaints can be voiced to the Ministry of Labour on the website http://Faz3a.mol.gov.jo or the numbers: 0796580666, 0785602666; and complaints can also be submitted to the Jordan Labour Watch and the Phenix Centre on WhatsApp through the number: 0775332237.

Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) on Wednesday decided to launch a JD500 million soft financing programme for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with the Jordan Loan Guarantee Corporation acting as guarantor on the loans.

The programme aims at addressing the coronavirus crisis and providing financing to professionals and craftspeople, as well as SMEs, to cover their operational working capital and fixed assets, the CBJ said in a statement.

Amid the growing developments related to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the CBJ has taken a set of precautionary measures to address the ramifications of the virus on the economy, including restructuring loans to individuals and institutions, notably SMEs.