Agricultural workers in Jordan continue to suffer from a lack of union organization, which has prevented them from benefiting from dispute resolution tools and the right to collective bargaining, according to a specialized policy paper.
The paper, issued by the Phenix Center for Economic and Information Studies, pointed out that this conflicts with Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining, which Jordan has ratified, and with the Jordanian Constitution, which states that "laws issued under this Constitution to regulate rights and freedoms may not affect the essence of these rights or affect their fundamentals."
The paper pointed out that the Agricultural Workers Law, which was issued after a 13-year wait, did not explicitly refer to the organization of trade unions for agricultural workers and referred everything that is not stipulated in the law to the provisions of the Labor Law.
It pointed out that the provisions of the labor law fell short of achieving justice in the enjoyment of freedom of association by all workers, which directly affects their enjoyment of their labor rights, in contradiction with the Jordanian constitution and the international treaties ratified by Jordan.
The Labor Law restricts the establishment of trade unions to Jordanians only, making migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation and preventing them from enjoying decent working conditions.
The law also restricted the formation and classification of unions, giving the Minister of Labor the right to classify the industries and economic activities in which workers may establish unions to represent them, limiting them to a specific number, which led to the inclusion of agricultural workers and agricultural holdings in a union that is far removed from the nature of their work, namely the Food Industries Workers' Union (FIWU).
The law also denied the group of workers who are not affiliated with unions the right to dispute resolution tools and the right to collective bargaining, depriving thousands of unorganized workers of exercising the freedom of trade union organization.
The paper recommended amending all articles related to trade union organization and collective bargaining in the Labor Law based on the provisions of the Jordanian Constitution and the provisions of international treaties ratified by Jordan, especially the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.