Jordan Times
Monday, August 14, 2006
Salem outlines measures to protect workers’ rights in QIZs
AMMAN (JT) — Minister of Labour Bassem Salem on
Sunday met with US Ambassador to Jordan David Hale and delegates of the Office
of the US Trade Representative to outline efforts to safeguard workers’ rights
in the country’s Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ).
During a tour of the QIZs, Salem reviewed the role of the ministry in
controlling and monitoring the implementation of labour legislation and in
ensuring that workers’ rights are fully safeguarded.
He also briefed the delegation on the development of an inspection system to
ensure that conditions at the QIZs conform to international standards.
Inspection campaigns in the zones have been intensified in the wake of a report
in May by the US National Labour Committee (NLC), which severely criticised
violations of workers’ rights in some of the industrial zones.
The report claimed that tens of thousands of foreign labourers were stripped of
their passports, trapped in involuntary servitude and forced to work without
sleep.
Some labourers, the report said, were forced to work 109 hours a week, including
20-hour shifts.
“The workers received no wages for six months. Workers who fell asleep from
exhaustion were struck with a ruler to wake them up,” the report said.
The government reacted by issuing its own report in May, confirming some of the
allegations, while denying others.
In a follow-up report in June, the NLC acknowledged that “Jordan has made
substantial improvements at many factories, but that violations of workers’
rights continue at smaller subcontractors.”
“The ministry is ready to cooperate with the Trade Representatives Office and
the Inter-American Agency for Cooperation and Development for further
improvement in the field of work inspection standards,” Salem told the
delegation yesterday.
The minister also reviewed a number of new monitoring measures such as the
creation of a hotline for employees to report alleged abuse cases, while
stressing the ministry’s willingness to cooperate with US trade representatives
and USAID in developing labour inspection standards.
The QIZ agreement with the US, signed in 1997, came out of the 1994 peace treaty
with Israel and entitles products produced in the zones to both duty-free and
quota-free access to the American market as long as they have a specified
Jordanian-Israeli input.
As a result of the QIZ deal and the Jordan-US Free Trade Agreement, signed in
December 2001, the country’s exports to the US have soared from a meagre $13
million in 1999 to $1.3 billion in 2005.
There are currently 13 QIZs containing over 50 factories.