Education Ministry’s engineers to strike until ‘justice achieved’

AMMAN — Engineers at the Education Ministry will strike all day on Monday and Tuesday until their “legitimate demands” are met and “justice is achieved”, the Jordan Engineers Association (JEA) and the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) announced jointly on Saturday.

The year-long “strife” for equal financial payments by engineers at the Education Ministry as those in other ministries and municipalities has been met with “dismissal and delay”, JEA Vice President Fawzi Masad told reporters during a press conference at the Professional Associations Complex.

“We understand the financial pressure on the country but the demands are legitimate and do not constitute a burden on the state budget,” Masad added, noting that the number of affected engineers is around 984, and their financial claims do not exceed JD750,000 annually.

The Jordan Times contacted the Ministry of Education’s Spokesperson Walid Jallad, but he declined to comment, saying: “It is Saturday today. It is the weekend and I will not comment on the matter.”

Following the recent strikes in October, former education minister Azmi Mahafzah promised to meet their demands, according Masad, adding that the request sent from the Education Ministry to the Prime Ministry “did not reflect the real situation of the engineers and has nothing to do with the actual claims, which is why it was rejected”. 

“The request stated that engineers are calling for extra benefits, which is not true,” said member of the Education Ministry’s engineers committee, Muath Btoush.

“We are only asking for our right to be equal with other recruited engineers, as stipulated by the civil service bureau’s law,” said Muath Btoush. 

Btoush and his colleague committee spokesperson, Sufyan Abusafi, said that arbitrary measures were taken against them by the ministry, in attempts to pressure the engineers to withdraw their demands.

Warnings were issued against the protesting engineers, as well as threats of salary deductions and arbitrary transfers to distant governorates, to push them to stop pressing for their demands, according to Btoush and Abusafi.   

AEA Vice President Nehad Al Olaimi described the alleged “continued negligence” of the demands, and the several promises not met, as “unfair”, pledging to protect all the engineers who participate in the strikes.

Strikes are within the rights of employees, and particularly the engineers in this case, guaranteed by the law, Olaimi stressed.

Rania Ruood, an agricultural engineer who is the head of a vocational school in Amman, said that the engineers who work with the Education Ministry are both teachers and engineers, and they exert the efforts of both jobs, yet they are not as appreciated as they should be. 

One of the attending engineers who also works with the Education Ministry said that the national plans and Royal visions stress the importance of vocational training, but there is no actual implementation to enhance this sector in reality. 

Masad concluded that they will not stop until their demands are met, voicing his hope that this is the “last episode of strikes”, following which justice is achieved.