By : JD News Desk
Jordan Daily – A local NGO launched a media campaign on Thursday to highlight the need for revising the wages and minimum wage in the country, in line with the international conventions that Jordan has ratified, and for ensuring that workers receive their dues.
Tamkeen for Legal Aid and Human Rights said in a statement , seen by the Jordan Daily , that the campaign came after Jordan endorsed the Arab Labor Convention No. 15 of 1983, on the determination and protection of wages, at the end of 2023. The convention contains several important provisions that call for re-examining the wages and the minimum wage in Jordan, and the campaign will discuss the main provisions of the convention and their compatibility with the Jordanian legislation.
According to a position paper by Tamkeen, titled “The Arab Labor Convention No. 15 of 1983, on the determination and protection of wages and Jordan’s ratification of it and the extent of its compatibility with the national legislation”, one of the key provisions of the convention is the definition of the minimum wage as “the estimated level of the wage to be sufficient to satisfy the essential needs of the worker and his family, such as clothing and housing, to live at a decent human level”.
The paper explained that in Jordan, the minimum wage, which is currently JD 260 , is determined by a tripartite committee for labor affairs, composed of representatives of the government, employers and workers. The committee is supposed to take into account the indicators of living costs issued by the official competent authorities, according to Article (52) of the Labor Law.
However, the paper noted that the decisions of the tripartite committee that set the minimum wage do not include the criteria on which they were based, and that the minimum wage remains low despite the rising inflation rates, which erode the purchasing power of workers.
The paper argued that linking the minimum wage to inflation would increase and preserve the purchasing power of workers, as there is an inverse relationship between purchasing power and inflation. For example, when prices rise with fixed wages, the purchasing power of citizens decreases, while when wages rise at a higher rate than prices, the purchasing power improves.
