After the strike of Shell all service institutions .. Agreement between UNRWA and workers in Jordan

Ayman Fadilat-Amman

After a ten-hour strike, workers' unions of UNRWA and the agency's chairmanship - mediated by Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi - reached a solution under which the strike was suspended, after employees received monthly increases of between 70 and 100 dinars. $ 100 and $ 140)

Early in the morning, UNRWA schools closed with chains and locks. Medical clinics and community centers in Palestinian camps ceased to serve refugees.

The streets and alleys of Palestinian refugee camps were overcrowded with piles of garbage accumulated due to the open-ended strike announced by UNRWA staff unions, demanding improvement in their living conditions and a monthly increase of 100 Jordanian dinars.

UNRWA operates around 170 schools in the governorates of the Kingdom, where there are Palestinian camps. It hosts approximately 120,000 Palestinian refugee students, in addition to 25 health centers, 14 women's centers and other institutions and departments. It employs approximately 7,000 staff and staff. To 2.1 million refugees in Jordan.

Details of the agreement
The details of the agreement were announced by Minister Safadi at a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs this evening, including granting the required financial increase to all UNRWA employees who hold the second to eighth grade.

Employees with the 9th to 20th grade were given a monthly increase of 70 dinars and the basic salary would also be granted starting in January.

Riad Zeghan, head of the UNRWA staff union in Jordan, announced the end of the strike, and the staff's readiness to make up the day for students, patients and others.

UNRWA faced its biggest financial challenge in 2018 after the US government decided to cut off its $ 300 million in aid to the agency.

Exchange charges
UNRWA staff unions held the Agency's Presidency responsible for suspending the study, health, social and relief services provided to refugees, attributing this to UNRWA management policies of `` intransigence, abolition of jobs, pressure on the numbers of students in classrooms, and the reduction of the number of cleaners in the camps, so that its streets are a health problem. ''

According to a statement of these unions, Al-Jazeera Net, a result of these policies, prompted the employees to announce the open strike "to highlight UNRWA's unfair policies in curtailing various services, the displacement of staff to government institutions as a result of lack of privileges, and the appointment of replacements in various posts." .

UNRWA has a budget deficit of $ 89 million for 2019, and the UNRWA administration is trying to mobilize funding to ensure that all its programs continue uninterrupted for some 5.5 million Palestine refugees in its areas of operation.

The symbolism of UNRWA
UNRWA management offered the workers' unions to accept a monthly increase of 70 dinars, but the unions maintained a 100 dinar increase and held meetings between the two parties mediated by Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and the Palestine Committee in the House of Representatives.

During a meeting of the Palestine Committee with UNRWA Director of Operations Mohammed Adar on Saturday, he pointed out that the Agency is under great pressure and challenges in order to weaken them, and there are countries that have pledged to support UNRWA but did not send support, and unfortunately there is no salaries for staff at the end of December.

UNRWA management has promised to appoint a working group at the beginning of 2020 to review its payroll policy, which will determine salary surveys across the Agency as a whole, in a transparent, consistent and equitable manner.

UNRWA, which is symbolic and indicative of the issue of Palestinian refugees after their displacement from their land and expelled them to neighboring countries in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, was planned to resolve them in the files of the deal of the century, and to replace them with financial compensation to the host countries for refugees, or through the establishment of an international fund for the relief of Palestinian refugees, unless The failure of the deal of the century to delay these solutions for the coming years.