The Jordanian Labor Movement(on the occasion of the World Labor Day)

Millions of workers in the world celebrate the May Day. The credit of introducing this day is attributed to the "Labor Knights" organization, which was founded in America in 1869 as a syndicate that seeks to improve the life conditions of workers and reduction in working hours.

With the development of the trade union movement, a group of union leaders managed in the composition of the workers in 1886. This body called for considering the first of May of that year a day of general strike in order to reduce working hours to eight hours in all professions and industries. The founding conference of the parties and unions in the world held in 1890 decided to consider the first of May as a holiday for workers. Interest in the Labor Day has grown and assumed a global dimension to be celebrated annually throughout the world.

The Jordanian labor movement is one of the early labor movements in the Arab world, where workers union was founded in Jordan in 1954. It had participated in founding of the Union of Arab Workers, where its representatives participated in the first founding conference, and participated in most meetings and activities that took place at the Arab level. The Jordanian labor movement made substantial progress during more than half a century ago in taking advantage of the positive conditions, high national spirit, constructive cooperation and concern for the property of the nation of all development partners, which contributed to development, progress and enormous gains for the national labor movement.

To raise performance levels, rehabilitation and labor skills, the Institute of Labor Culture was established. The laws governing public safety from the concerned government bodies also contributed to reducing the number of work accidents, where the action taken in this regard lead to lowering the number of casualties from (17477) injury in 2001 to (14738) in 2005. This decline in casualties resulted in a significant reduction in the expenses of injuries down from JD 1,904,695 in 2001 to JD 666,787 in 2005. The number of insured workers by the Social Security Cooperation has risen from 366330 in the year 2000 to 724167 in 2007. The minimum wages level has increased to JD 110 monthly. Wages and salaries have improved significantly, with the monthly wage rate rising from JD 60 in the mid-1970s up to JD 211 in the mid -1990s and then risen to JD 280 in 2006.

The following table shows the monthly wages and salaries average for paid workers in the private and public sectors establishments.

The Monthly Wages and Salaries average for Paid Workers in the Private and Public Sectors during 2000-2006

 Furthermore, membership with the various trade unions has witnessed a tangible demand by workers in various professions.  The number of members reached 136079 in 2006.

Successive governments have been keen to enable workers to play an effective and influential role through the provision of social protection to them, and guarantee their rights, in order to achieve their aspirations to live in dignity and future security, believing that the relationship between the three partners in the production process must be built on trust, which is based on a serious dialogue that leads to achieve the desired goals. The Jordanian labor movement was also keen to promote closer partnership and constructive cooperation between the public and private sectors to provide training opportunities for Jordanian workers and enhance their skills, which qualify them to work in different economic sectors, and provide them with opportunities to demonstrate their ability in production and creativity.

The results of the employment and unemployment surveys indicate the growing percentage of the economically active Jordanians who hold an educational qualification   (Bachelor degree or higher) between 2003 and 2007. Their percentage rose from 19.2% to 25.0% between the above two years. In contrast, the ratio of economically active Jordanians below the bachelor degree level has gone down from 78.6% in 2003 to 73.5% in 2007. The illiterates constitute a small percentage of the economically active Jordanians, they have accounted for 2.2% and 1.5% in 2003 and 2007 respectively.

In spite of the gains achieved by the Jordanian labor movement, it is still facing many challenges in the local labor market, the most important of which is the competition with foreign labor, which increased dramatically and hindered the Jordanian labor force from benefiting from the employment opportunities created by different economic sectors on one hand, and kept unemployment rates constant in spite of the efforts being made to reduce and limit the spread of the phenomenon of unemployment.

The economic participation of Jordanian women still far from the desired level, where the Refined Activity Rate of the Jordanian women was 14.7% only, which indicates that one woman out of every 6-8 women were economically active in 2007 compared with one man among every 1.6 men in the age 15 years and over.

 The results of the employment and unemployment surveys which have been implemented since the beginning of the new millennium showed that the Refined Activity Rate for women aged 15 years and above ranged from 10.4% in 2004 and 12.3% in 2000. There is no doubt that the low rate of economic participation of women in Jordan clearly limits the entry of women into the labor market due to the influence of many social and economic factors and other factors.

 The Refined Activity Rate of the Jordanian population 15 years and above