The Jordanian Labor Watch of the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies is severely concerned at the administrative measures taken and exercised by the government against the teachers for their participation in the strike led by their union.
The statement stresses that the union has the right to strike in order to improve the working and living conditions of the teachers. The restrictions enforced on the practice of the strike in the civil service system and on the Teachers Syndicate Law contradict the provisions of the Jordanian Constitution, especially articles 15, 16 and 128, which guarantee them the right to strike, peaceful assembly and expression of opinion.
The statement points out that the restrictions on the practice of strike in the civil service system and on the Teachers Syndicate Law contradict Jordan's obligations towards the relevant ratified international treaties. Among them, the most important are the International Covenants on ‘Civil and Political Rights’ and ‘Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’, which have become part of the Jordanian legislative system since its ratification and publication in the Official Gazette in 2006.
The statement emphasises that “no party of the treaty may invoke the provisions of its national law as a justification for the failure to implement the treaty,'' according to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The Jordanian jurisprudence settled on the priority of enforcing ratified international treaties in case of conflict with Jordanian laws, and the Jordanian Court of Cassation issued several decisions in this regard.
In addition, the statement of the Labor Watch points out that the infliction of administrative penalties, the imposition of relocations and replacements of teachers with substitutes, the incitement against teachers and the attempts to stop their strike without reaching any agreement with their union, explicitly contravenes ILO Convention No. 98 - on the ‘Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention’ of 1949, ratified by Jordan in 1962 - and violates the decisions of the Committee on Trade Union Freedoms of the ILO’s Governing Body.
Jordan Labor Watch calls on the government to stop these practices that contravene the Constitution, human rights principles, international labor standards and Jordan international commitments, and to respond to the demands of the Teachers' Union.