Municipality workers resume strike, insisting on full demands — union

AMMAN — The municipalities’ labourers on Wednesday resumed their strike across the Kingdom saying they had not obtained their “due rights”, the Jordan news Agency, Petra, reported.

Upon a request from Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh, the executive council for municipalities’ labourers union, an unofficial syndicate, suspended their strike for two weeks hoping to find solutions to meet their demands.

The union’s spokesperson, Ahmad Saadi, said that the meeting of the municipality heads, which was held on Tuesday evening, was too late.

Saadi added that the municipalities had thus far responded to only one of their demands, which was the creation of safety departments. However, they still had several other requests which were not met.

Saadi noted that the decisions made by the municipalities did not lead to solutions that met their living and job security-related demands, which motivated the union to resume the strike.

Also on Wednesday, employees in the municipalities of western Irbid, New Al Taybeh, Al Wasatiyah and New Northern Mazar, all in Irbid Governorate, also launched open strikes in an effort to push their employers to improve their living and working conditions.

A number of employees stated that they had “fair demands”, that their strike was legitimate and that it would not end until those demands were met, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The municipalities’ mayors brought up the possibility of imposing penalties on strikers, due to the disruption the strikers have caused to normal life in towns and villages.

The mayors also pointed out that most of the employees’ demands have already been met. Furthermore, some of the demands can only be met through allocations in next year’s budget and other demands need legal amendments to become a reality. 

They noted that the environment departments’ employees and the sanitation workers did not participate in the strike and continued to provide services, according to the schedules prepared.

On a related note, Minister of Transport and Minister of Municipal Affairs Walid Masri stressed that the committee he formed to study the demands of municipalities’ employees, examined these conditions over a two-week period and came up with solutions that addressed 90 to 95 per cent of the demands, according to Petra.

Masri confirmed that the Lower House Speaker Atef Tarawneh had submitted a written memorandum with proposed solutions to the prime minister, in the presence of the minister of municipal affairs.

This written memorandum included proposal that addressed 70 per cent of the demands of the municipalities’ employees, mainly those concerning day labourers, drivers and third-class staff.

The proposals put forth were adopted and the government believes it will go a long way towards addressing many of the issues raised by the municipalities’ workers.  

However, it seems that many of the municipalities’ labourers do not agree and the strike is expected to continue.