AMMAN — Ali Al-Sayed, 50, is an Egyptian construction
worker who spends hours working under the scorching sun and heat at different
sites in Amman during the summer. His only protection is wetting his baseball
cap to avoid sun strokes.
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“This is my work and I have to live with it to make
a living,” he said. “I have no alternative, except to try to avoid sun strokes,
or getting sick from the heat.”
Sayed, who has been working in Jordan for 10 years,
said he asked his employer to take a break during the peak hours of the day,
working instead at dawn, or at night when the weather is cooler.
“He refused because this does not bode well with the
work schedule, although we argued that the sun and heat reduce our
productivity,” added the worker, one of an estimated 750,000 Egyptian workers
in Jordan.
Walid Al-Abbadi, an engineer who oversees a housing
project, said he advocated halting work during peak sun hours. “This is what we
do in our company to avoid sun strokes and have the workers work well and
produce better, provided that they work certain shift hours,” he said.
Abbadi called for the necessity of providing
laborers with health benefits and social security, in addition to “taking into
account the humanitarian aspect in dealing with them”.
He said that some employers exploit workers,
“especially in the current economic conditions”, where prices of various
commodities have increased. By the same token, he added, there “are workers who
would accept very low payments, which may reach half of the average daily wage
in order to get a job.”
Exposing workers to any of these dangers constitutes a violation of laws which require punishment
He called on workers to adhere to safety measures by
wearing helmets and special suits, which would protect them from injuries.
He pointed to hazards at the workplace. “The floors
are high, and in most cases at construction sites, the stairs are without
railing, and these are dangers that require caution.”
Haitham Al-Najdawi, the head of the Central
Inspection Directorate of the Ministry of Labor, said that the labor law did
not explicitly address the issue of working conditions under high temperatures,
but the ministry obliges employers to provide protection for workers and to
establish measures to protect them in Article 78 of the Labor Law.
Najdawi said that the Ministry of Labor publishes
awareness and educational messages to workers and employers periodically to
raise their awareness on hazards in the workplace and points them to
appropriate public safety mechanisms.
...The dangers posed by the work environment that is extremely hot or cold, which exposes them to heat strokes, severe exhaustion, and sometimes death
Hamada Abu Nijmeh, the head of the Worker’s House,
said that protecting workers from all forms of work hazards is the
responsibility of the government as well as employers. He said the worker
safety is stipulated by legislation, particularly the Labor Law in the chapter
related to occupational safety and health, and the regulations and instructions
issued, based on this chapter.
“In our laws and in international labor standards,
work is required to stop in conditions that pose a danger to workers, whether
for reasons of extremely cold or hot weather conditions, or because of any
other factors in internal or external work sites,” he said. Abu Nijmeh said the
safety measures also apply to workers on their way to and from work.
“Exposing workers to any of these dangers
constitutes a violation of laws which require punishment,” he explained.
Although there is no explicit provision in the
Jordanian Labor Law about working conditions and times in outdoor sites in
exceptional weather conditions as in other countries, the Labor Law requires
employers to provide the necessary precautions to protect workers from
workplace hazards.
“This includes the dangers posed by the work
environment that is extremely hot or cold, which exposes them to heat strokes,
severe exhaustion, and sometimes death,” he said.
The Labor Law, he
added, gave the minister the powers to issue instructions and make decisions
related to the protection of workers from the dangers in the workplace and to
specify the measures to be adopted by employers to ensure the safety of
everyone in the workplace.
The Minister of Labor can also dictate the terms of
protection for working conditions in extremely hot or very cold weather, and
that the minister’s failure to act would not preempt the responsibility of
employers to provide a suitable work environment.
In the agricultural sector, important legislative progress
was achieved in this regard with the issuance of the agricultural workers’
system in March 2021. Article 4 in the law gave the Minister of Labor the power
to issue the necessary decision in exceptional weather conditions, specifying
the working hours in which it is prohibited to hire laborers to work outdoors.
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