VZCZCXYZ0002
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAM #3579/01 2381305
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 261305Z AUG 07
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0108
INFO RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 3351
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS 3688
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 5453
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0125
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC

C O N F I D E N T I A L AMMAN 003579 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ELA RANA, G/TIP, AND DRL 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR (KARESH, ROSENBERG, SAUMS) 
STATE PLEASE PASS TO USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/26/2015 
TAGS: ELAB ETRD EAID JO QIZ
SUBJECT: SLOW BUT STEADY PROGRESS ON QIZ LABOR ISSUES 
 
REF: A. AMMAN 3472 
     ¶B. EMAIL ROSENBERG-SCHWEDT-BROWN-PISANI 6/18/2007 
 
Classified By: Ambassador David Hale, For Reasons 1.4 b,d 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Since the Ministry of Labor (MOL) 
published a Plan of Action in March 2007, Jordan has been 
making slow but steady progress on labor issues in the 
Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs).  For the first time, a 
Jordanian court found supervisors in one factory guilty of 
physical abuse and issued a fine.  The Ministry of Labor 
(MOL) has also begun a regularization process of illegal 
workers through issuance of around 5,500 temporary ID cards. 
Although companies remain frustrated with bureaucratic 
lethargy and lack of labor (Ref A), MOL has slowly been 
building capacity and the institutional framework to identify 
and resolve labor issues proactively.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (U) The Ministry of Labor reported that 99 factories in 
the QIZs employed a total of 52,058 individuals, of which 
15,175 were Jordanian and 36,883 were foreign, as of June 30, 
¶2007.  Women, including 9,230 Jordanians and 20,262 
foreigners, comprised 57 percent the QIZ labor force.  The 
MOL currently has 91 trained inspectors on staff. 
USAID-funded MOL Advisor Lejo Sibbel told Econoff and USAID 
that he expects 20 additional inspectors to be hired within 
the next two months.  Although capacity is still lacking in 
the MOL, Sibbel said that in 95 percent of the recent QIZ 
labor cases brought to the MOL's attention, particularly by 
the National Labor Committee (NLC), the MOL has already 
identified the issues and been working to resolving them. 
 
Progress:  First Conviction for Physical Abuse in QIZ 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶3.  (U) After investigating various allegations by the NLC, 
MOL posted June 30 on its website (www.mol.gov.jo) a first 
report on inspections issues, which responds to the NLC 
reports on specific factories and aims to provide more 
details on inspection reform activities.  In one significant 
case, MOL had been monitoring the working conditions at 
Cotton Craft factory since the end of 2006.  Given that some 
of the violations alleged by workers fell outside the scope 
of Jordan's labor law, a GOJ Inter-Ministerial Committee 
carried out the inspections, and in line with the Committee's 
recommendations, MOL assisted six workers in filing a legal 
case against three supervisors who allegedly had slapped 
these workers.  A Jordanian Court found the supervisors 
guilty and fined them.  This was the first time the judicial 
system found factory supervisors guilty in relation to 
complaints of physical abuse.  Cotton Craft was sold in June 
2007, and MOL continues to monitor an agreement with the new 
management. 
 
¶4. (U) MOL also posted an update covering April and May to 
its March 2007 Action Plan that outlines steps taken to 
directly improve working conditions through enforcement, 
compliance and enhanced institutional capacity. Some 
highlights include: 
-- 43 country-wide inspections from March 30 to May 31 
conducted by a nine-person MOL Inspection Force, formally 
established in March 2007; 
-- Establishment of a new National Training Center for Labor 
Inspectors, with ILO providing initial technical assistance; 
-- Establishment of an Inter-Ministerial Technical Level 
Committee, composed of working-level staff from the 
Ministries of Labor, Justice, Interior and Trade and the 
Intelligence Department, to investigate and respond to 
non-labor law violations, such as physical and sexual abuse 
and trafficking; and 
-- Holding of a workshop, organized May 30-31 by the Jordan 
Garments, Accessories, and Textiles Exporters' Association 
(JGATE) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) as 
part of the GTIP-funded project to raise employers' awareness 
of the issue of forced labor and trafficking issues. 
 
¶5. (SBU)  Minister of Labor Bassem Salem has remained engaged 
on labor issues in the QIZs.  Sibbel noted that Salem 
personally accompanied MOL inspectors to the Al-Hassan QIZ 
where approximately 430 Bengali workers from Al Mithaliya 
factory began a strike on August 2, requesting amendments to 
their contracts, which currently allow for deductions of food 
and accommodation from their base salaries, among other 
demands.  Since its adoption in 1996, Article 2 of Jordan's 
Labor Code has allowed for the possibility of wage components 
to include payments in kind.  Given that the workers launched 
a strike without giving 14-day notice to employers - as 
required by the local labor law - and that the demands were 
inconsistent with the terms in their contracts, MOL found 
that the workers did not have legitimate cause to strike, 
making the strike "illegal," and said that they would be 
fined in accordance with the law.  MOL offered to facilitate 
repatriation for any worker who preferred to return home 
rather than go back to work.  As of August 26, Sibbel said 
approximately 100 workers whose contract had expired or was 
about to expire had agreed to return home, with the company 
paying any overstay fines and airline tickets.  Most of the 
rest of workers on strike appear to have returned to work. 
 
Allegations of Workers Held Against their Will 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Following up on Ref B reports from Jones NY 
headquarters that there were up to 3,000 migrant workers who 
were not being allowed to leave the country, EconCouns raised 
the issue with MOL Secretary General Majed Habashneh. 
Habashneh responded that MOL has been trying to compile 
better statistics to determine the overall number of 
employees working without permits, estimated to be 
approximately 6,700.  He listed various reasons for their 
status, including insufficient paperwork by company 
management, slow GOJ bureaucracy in processing the paperwork, 
and penalty fees accrued for lack of worker permits. 
 
¶7.  (U) MOL has been working with the JGATE to identify 
illegal workers and provide temporary ID cards.  Sibbel said 
that the MOL just received the last batch of cards from the 
manufacturer and as of August 19, had distributed 
approximately 5,500.  The cards will be valid until November 
¶2007.  During this period of regularization, companies with 
legitimate fines will be required to pay them.  MOL will 
request a waiver of fines from the Ministry of Interior for 
other companies that should not have such financial 
responsibility - i.e., for taking on workers transferred from 
another company that the MOL shut down due to gross labor 
violations.  After this period, any individual whom the MOL 
finds does not have the proper paperwork will be expatriated. 
 Sibbel estimated that MOL would begin enforcing these 
regulations in early 2008. 
 
¶8. (U) NOTE: MOL instituted a similar regularization system 
for illegal Egyptian workers that resulted in issuance of 
over 12,400 permits to Egyptian laborers submitted at the 
Egyptian Embassy in Amman.  Once the regularization grace 
period ended, MOL began inspections in mid-July 2007.  MOL 
reported that as of August 20, police had taken into custody 
3,857 illegal workers (mostly Egyptians, but also some 
Syrians and Iraqis), of whom 1,051 were repatriated.  A 
number of those arrested were released for humanitarian 
reasons.  END NOTE. 
 
¶9. (C) Econoff and poloff also spoke with the Jones NY Social 
Compliance Auditor in Jordan, Kesava Murali, regarding the 
specific factory allegations.  Murali confirmed that he had 
encountered cases of workers whose contracts had ended but 
were not being allowed to leave the country, either because 
their replacement had not yet arrived or because the factory 
still had to pay penalty fees for lack of worker permits.  He 
could not, however, provide hard numbers, nor confirm that 
these individuals were being forced to stay in Jordan against 
their will.  He said that the 3,000 number was a rough 
estimate, assuming that there were at least 30 workers in 
similar situations in each factory multiplied by 100 
factories. 
 
¶10.  (C) Murali did identify one factory in particular, 
Mediterranean Resources Apparel Industry (MRAI), that he 
claimed had many violations including 900 employees without 
permits.  As Jones NY had decided to cease doing business 
with MRAI, Murali passed information on the factory to MOL. 
Sibbel confirmed August 19 that MOL inspected the factory in 
early August and conducted 225 random interviews with 
workers.  As part of the ongoing investigation, MOL is still 
gathering information from MRAI to determine the number of 
workers whose contracts have actually expired.  If there are 
cases in which the factory is holding workers against their 
will, the MOL will facilitate their repatriation.  Sibbel 
mentioned that MOL had found one other case in which a 
handful of individuals whose contract had expired were not 
being released from employment.  After the factory gave the 
excuse that no economy flights had been available, MOL 
ordered that the workers be returned home, even if business 
class tickets had to be purchased. 
 
¶11. (U) In general, Habashneh said that the Ministry of Labor 
can request the Ministry of Interior to issue waivers of 
penalties or contracts in specific cases, to ensure that no 
employee is held in the country against his or her will on 
this basis.  Having worked closely with MOL on contract 
waivers for humanitarian cases, the National Center for Human 
Rights has offered to provide workers a direct cell phone 
number in the event they need help with requesting such a 
waiver.  To provide more effective channels of communication 
for workers to MOL, the Ministry added cell phone numbers to 
its hotline, which initially only consisted of a landline. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) The GOJ has continued to make slow but steady 
progress on the labor front.  Buyers and factory operators, 
while not 100 percent satisfied with the speed of 
implementing the action plan, have indicated that the GOJ is 
doing a much better job of communicating next steps, in part 
thanks to the efforts of Sibbel.  Ongoing training and 
recruitment of inspectors should help ease the constraints of 
limited short-term capacity as well.  Other areas that could 
facilitate labor improvements include: better interagency 
coordination; thinking beyond inspections to enhancing worker 
productivity; adopting new technologies and moving to 
higher-end products; finding ways to attract local labor; and 
factory acceptance that labor can no longer be used as a cost 
reducer.  Many of these issues will be addressed through the 
USAID-funded SABEQ program which aims to improve Jordan's 
competitiveness and the Better Work Jordan program that is 
currently being developed by ILO with USAID and other donor 
support. 
 
Visit Amman's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ 
Hale