JAFCCO employees protest move to lay off 75 workers

AMMAN — At least 200 workers of the Jordan Abyad Fertilisers & Chemicals Company (JAFCCO) protested in front of the Prime Ministry on Wednesday over the lay-off of 75 employees and the three-month-overdue salaries of 386 employees. 

Mohammad Hajaya, the vice president of the General Union of Mine Workers, said he and a group of the workers met with the Prime Ministry’s public relations director, Amer Hneiti, who listened to their demands and suggested solutions, including finding new jobs for the workers. 

Hneiti pledged to deliver his report to Prime Minister Hani Mulki, Hajaya told The Jordan Times. 

Labour Ministry Spokesperson Mohammad Khatib said JAFCCO is supposed to submit a request for restructuring and coordinate with the ministry, because it is a relatively large company, before laying-off workers. 

“The [laid-off] workers can sue the company,” Khatib noted. 

JAFCCO, based in Karak’s Abyad area, is owned by three main partners: a Bahraini investor that owns around 62 per cent, the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (22 per cent) and the Arab Mining Company (12 per cent).

Labour Minister Ali Ghezawi has met with the Bahraini investor and JPMC Chairman Amer Majali, and discussed restructuring the company, which — in this case — could lead to laying-off all the workers and depriving them of their rights, so they agreed on finding new solutions, Khatib explained.

The ministry is working on a compromise to reach an agreement that satisfies all parties, he added.

Khatib said the ministry has already issued warnings to the company against the overdue salaries and directed the workers to register a complaint with the ministry’s wages authority, to enable it to begin the official procedures to secure their rights. 

Hajaya confirmed that the union’s lawyer will be registering the complaint most likely on Thursday. 

He argued that the main issue was failure on the part of the executive administration of the company. 

The workers have held several sit-ins over this week in front of the Ministry of Labour and the JPMC’s headquarters. 

Mohammad Bdeirat, the workers’ representative, insisted that the JD52 million investment was not losing, charging that the weak administration brought production to a halt five months ago although it used to manufacture seven to eight tonnes of fertilisers monthly.