AMMAN — The
General Trade Union for Public Services, Free Vocations,
Communications and Information Technology called for the need to raise the service charge for
tourism workers on grounds that it is an acquired right.
اضافة اعلان
The call followed a
drop in the percentage, which was cut by half from 10 to 5 percent in the wake
of a government decision at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to alleviate
the economic burden on the owners of tourist facilities.
“The service charge
in the tourism sector is part and parcel of the worker’s monthly salary,” union
president
Khaled Abu Marjoub told
Jordan News.
He said: “It is a
legitimate right of workers, under a decision by the Legislation and Opinion
Bureau.”
“It is an integral
part of the monthly wage of workers, and must not be reduced, to preserve the
workers’ wages,” he pointed out.
Abu Marjoub
stressed the importance of implementing the old decision, and keeping the
employees’ salaries as they were pre-pandemic “to improve the living conditions
of these workers”.
Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities figures showed that the number of workers in hotels is about
20,000, with at least 18,000 of them being Jordanians.
Abdul Hakim
Al-Hindi, head of the Jordan Hotel Association, said that the service allowance
is an acquired right for workers in the tourism and hotel sector by virtue of a
decision issued by the Minister of Tourism in 1996. “It motivates workers in
hotels and restaurants,” he explained.
He said that the 10
percent was deducted from visitors frequenting these establishments. It was
divided between the facility and the worker, so that 7 percent goes to the
worker, compared to 3 percent that goes for hotel establishments, he added.
“The decision
remained as such until the beginning of 2020, and continued during the
pandemic, and the decisions that followed,” he said. “However, the government
reduced the value to 5 percent instead of 10 percent.”
“Workers had to
accept it despite the negative impact it bore on workers in the sector,” he
added.
He said that
following the pandemic and the sector’s recovery, “we hope that the percentage
rises again to 10 percent”.
He pointed out that
the union, since the beginning of the year, demanded that the percentage be
restored to the previous level, without linking it to the sales tax, which was
halved to 8 percent.
Mohammad
Al-Balawneh, a 33 years old restaurant worker for six years, said workers’
salaries before the pandemic “were much better”.
“After cutting the
service charge, the salary eroded,” he pointed out.
“We need a
financial support to fulfill our obligations, one that would encourage us to
provide better services to clients,” he said.
“Before the
pandemic, my salary was JD400, but it’s JD360 now,” he said. “Recently, I
started to look for jobs abroad, and applied in one of the Gulf countries in
search of a better income.”
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