Observation (CEACR) - adopted 1992, published 79th ILC session (1992)

Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98) - Jordan (Ratification: 1968)

The Committee takes note of the Government's report.

It recalls that, for several years, its comments have addressed the following points:

(1) the absence of specific provisions accompanied by sufficiently effective sanctions to ensure the protection of workers' organisations against any act of interference by employers or their organisations (Article 2 of the Convention);

(2) the absence of provisions ensuring that the Convention is applied to domestic servants and agricultural workers who are not employed in government organisations or institutions for mechanical equipment or in irrigation work.

1. Article 2 (protection of workers' organisations against acts of interference). The Committee observes that, in its report, the Government merely indicates that the draft Labour Code contains a provision guaranteeing the protection of workers and trade union representatives engaged in trade union activities against any arbitrary measure on the part of employers by reason of their activities, in accordance with the observation of the Committee of Experts and in order to fill the void in the law currently in force.

The Committee must again remind the Government that on ratifying the Convention it undertook to adopt specific measures to protect not only workers and their representatives against acts of anti-union discrimination, but also workers' organisations against acts of interference on the part of employers and employers' organisations which are designed to promote the establishment of workers' organisations under the domination of employers or employers' organisations, or to support workers' organisations by financial or other means with the object of placing such organisations under the control of employers or employers' organisations. The Committee therefore again requests the Government to adopt specific measures in the near future to bring its legislation into line with Article 2 of the Convention.

2. Protection of agricultural workers and domestic workers. In this connection, the Committee observes that, in its report, the Government repeats the information that it supplied previously to the effect that the draft Labour Code will apply to all or to a considerable part of agricultural workers. It adds that the proposed Code will not apply to domestic personnel but provides that gardeners and cooks working for private households and similar workers may come under regulations established by the Council of Ministers on the proposal of the Ministry of Labour which will govern their conditions of employment.

The Committee once again stresses the need to grant all agricultural and domestic workers, without exception, protection against acts of anti-union discrimination, as well as the right to negotiate their conditions of employment collectively. It asks the Government to take the necessary measures in the very near future to apply the Convention, and to indicate any progress made in this respect in its next report.