MB takes advantage of Jordan’s teachers strike crises to pressure gov’t for license

Asmaa Al-Batakoshi

Jordanian teachers have defied a government call to end their four-week nationwide strike over pay, in a deepening crisis that threatens to further strain the heavily indebted country’s economy.

Razzaz has said in TV remarks that the government is drafting a “comprehensive plan” to improve teachers’ living standards.

The premier said the decision to implement pay raises for all teachers was taken unilaterally after all attempts to reach a deal with the Jordan Teachers Association (JTA) failed to end the strike.

Teachers began a nationwide strike on September 8, demanding a 50% pay raise.

The JTA, headed by a Muslim Brotherhood administration, has been rejecting government calls to end the strike and declaring support for it until the government listens to the demands.

The Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, has issued a statement in which it demanded the government to achieve all the demands by teachers.

The statement called upon the government to deal wisely with this crisis and not to offend the class of teachers, stressing the prestigious position and roles of teachers in building generations and the homeland.

Razzaz was reported by Reuters saying: “It’s high time students go back to school. We hope the union will look positively at these decisions.”

However, the Syndicate rejected the government’s decision and accused the prime minister of imposing a one-sided solution and said it needs a real rise in salaries.

The teachers’ union, which has 100,000 members, is demanding a 50% pay hike. Razzaz says pay increases that took effect this month averaging $35 per month were the most Jordan could afford.

“You are imposing a solution from one side. This is an authoritarian method,” Nasser Al-Nawasrah, deputy head of the Jordanian Teachers Syndicate, said in a statement.

Observers say the strike has another political dimension, especially that the movement is being called by Al-Nawasrah, who is a Muslim Brotherhood leader.

Dissident Muslim Brotherhood member Khalid al-Zaafarani told The Reference in an interview that this aims at making the Jordanian government reconsider the way it deals with the Brotherhood.

He clarified that the Muslim Brotherhood did not interfere to end the teachers strike in a new scheme to pressure the government for a license.

The government, which has public debts of around $40 billion, has stressed that the increase on offer was the maximum it could provide in the light of the chronic deficit in its annual budget.

In 2014, the Jordanian government agreed to provide teachers with a 50-per cent pay rise however this has never been implemented.