Labor Watch - Experts on the labor market demanded amending article 31 of the Labor Law regarding the restructuring procedures in the business establishments, as the Ministry of Labor must be informed before dismissing employees and adding a text to paragraph which guarantee workers’ rights and consider end of service an arbitrary dismissal.
Article 31 of the Labor Law, which is currently under discussion before the Parliamentary Labor Committee, states that "if the economic or technical conditions of the employer require the reduction of the work volume, the replacement of a production system with another, or final cessation of work, which requires suspension or ending all or some of work contracts, he shall notify the Minister in writing, reinforced by the justified reasons immediately.”
Ahmad Awad, director of the Phenix Center for Economic and Informatics Studies, said that many companies resort to paragraph a of this article for the wrong reasons, use the article under the pretext of having problems that requires restructuring and dismissing workers.
Awad suggested that "the employer should not carry out the restructuring procedures and dismissing workers in accordance with the text, unless the ministry approves, and those whose services will be terminated shall be considered as if they have been arbitrary dismissed to be compensated as provided by Article 25, because they will certainly face major problems, until entering the labor market again.
Labor law researcher Omar al-Auraishi stressed that article 31, as currently drafted, violates the balance of justice between the parties to production (worker and employer) as it does not provide legal and social protection to workers whose employer wishes to terminate their contracts collectively. This article allowed employers to lay off workers with higher salaries and other unfair practices that was a result of lack of legal protection for workers in the text of this article. Al-Araishi stressed that the legislator must amend the article in line with the international labor standards, which seek to provide decent work for workers, by amending the text which provide (… terminate unlimited contracts, or suspend all or some of it) if was limited only on unlimited contracts . "For fixed-term contracts, the worker's contract will be terminated by the end of his term, and employers often wait until the end of contract term to avoid compensation," he said.
He pointed out that the article obligates the owner to give notice to the minister, to verify the procedures he has done (to verify the employer's procedures and make recommendations thereon), allowing the employer to take over the workers and terminate their contracts in any form.
He added that "one of the most practical problems that reflect the weakness of the legal text, is the case of non-approval of the Tripartite Commission on the restructuring, which makes the competent minister face a legal problem in the legal action which may be taken against the employer when not comply with the decision of the Commission."
He pointed out that government represented by (the Ministry of Labor) does not have the right to direct a violation against the employer who violated the provision of the law, which does not exceed JD100, according to the provisions of article 139 of the same law. Paragraph (f) of the same article states that "a worker whose employment has been suspended in accordance with paragraph (a) of this article may leave work without notice, while retaining his legal rights" however when applied, the worker whose contract has been suspended is not entitled to any financial compensation.