AMMAN — Labor activists called for an increased minimum wage to cope with soaring
prices, challenging
Minister of Labor Nayef Steitieh who said no raises were in
the horizon.
اضافة اعلان
The minimum wage is JD260, which activist say is
barely enough to make decent living conditions and provide for their families,
considering a rise in foodstuffs, fuel and other necessary commodities.
Steitieh said in a statement on Al-MamlakaTV in
early July, that there was “no talk” about raising the minimum wage.
Mazen Al-Maaytah, president of the General
Federation of
Jordanian Trade Unions, said his group “will intensify its
efforts to demand an increase in the minimum wage, improvement of working
conditions and the achievement of new benefits for workers.”
“The significant rise in prices in the local markets
calls for a review of the minimum wage because, as it stands now, it is
widening poverty,” Maaytah told
Jordan News.
He asserted the importance of job stability for
workers to allow them to “earn a decent living with an adequate income that
would reduce the current liquidity crisis they are going through.”
Hamada Abu Nijmeh, head of the Workers’ House, said
that Article 52 of the Labor Law dictates that when setting the minimum wage,
“consideration should be given to the cost of living, as issued by the
competent official authorities”.
“It is agreed that several economic variables have
occurred since the adoption of the current minimum wage,” he said. “Those
variables have a significant impact on the level of cost of living, which
requires reviewing the minimum wage and measuring the impact of these variables
on it in order to secure the minimum standards of living for workers in the
private sector.”
“Here, it must be noted that the Jordanian economy,
like other countries in the world, has recently been affected by the
repercussions of the
COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which requires an increase in
the minimum wage in light of the slowdown in economic growth and average per
capita income,” he explained.
In terms of the expected effects of raising the
minimum wage on prices, Abu Nijmeh said that the “statistics indicate that the
average wage cost out of the total production costs in industries does not
exceed 10 percent, and therefore the expected rise in commodity prices in case
of raising the minimum wage will be slight and marginal.”
Ahmad Awad, head of the
Jordan Labor Watch, told
Jordan
News that “we have no choice but to undertake bold economic policies by
relying on strengthening domestic demand in order to advance the economy,
generate more job opportunities and combat the problem of poverty and
unemployment.”
He said the moves were necessary “to face various
economic challenges and to review the economic policies that have contributed
to weakening economic growth for many years, especially with expectations that
we are on the verge of a state of economic stagnation due to high inflation
rates and high interest rates.”
“There is an urgent need for the government to review wage
policies in the public and private sectors to confront poverty and the
significant slowdown in the Jordanian economy”, he added.
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