Labor dispute between staff unions and UNRWA.
Position Assessment
To write: Emad Afaneh
It seems that successive UNRWA administrations are proceeding within programmed plans with clear stages to weaken this UN institution, which was established in 1949 little by little, until the stage of decay. In response to the desire of the Zionist entity and its international sponsor, the United States of America, On the road to liquidating the issue of Palestinian refugees who demand the return to their homes and homes from which they were displaced in 1948, Note that the refugee issue represents the most important constants of the Palestinian cause.
UNRWA has not only reduced the various services provided to refugees. This has affected the future of students in education, and threatened the lives and health of millions of refugees, It threatened patients’ chances of receiving the necessary humane treatment, The cuts even affected the livelihood of the poor Palestinian refugee people.
The current UNRWA administration, led by Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, has not been satisfied with all of the above. And here he is trying to extend the hand of cuts to the pockets of the employees, Brandishing the inability to pay the salaries of the coming December and November, Under the pretext of the budget deficit and the chronic financial crisis that UNRWA is going through.
As a result, the staff unions of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in the five countries (Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) decided. entering into a labour dispute with the Agency’s management, To preserve the rights of employees and achieve their demands.
Staff unions have announced a labour dispute with UNRWA following the failure of their recent meeting with UNRWA Commissioner-General Lazzarini in which they tried to clear the atmosphere. Creating a productive work environment, In order to avoid entering into a labour dispute, It will inevitably affect all services provided to refugees.
But it seems that the negative outcome of the meeting, It led to enough with this administration, which exerted great pressure on employees and refugees in terms of violating their rights and infringing on their salaries and natural entitlements. Under the pretext of the financial crisis, which everyone knows is contrived by the forces working to liquidate the refugee issue.
What does the UNRWA management see in these measures a lifeline to save it from drowning? The employees’ unions believe that these measures will lead to the drowning of these employees in light of the compelling circumstances experienced by our Palestinian refugee people in all their locations.
Follow up on labor dispute between staff unions and UNRWA
It has become clear that the artificial financial crisis of UNRWA, It is no longer convincing as a reason for creating major crises that the UNRWA administration creates with staff and refugees. With all the lack of services that these crises have caused to refugees, Whether educational, health or food relief, Or even in terms of employment.
To identify the dimensions of the labour dispute declared by the staff unions with UNRWA, We reviewed the demands of the UNRWA Staff Union, which turned out to be very clear and simple demands, It consists in:
– Cancellation of the exceptional leave without pay waved by the Agency’s management in every financial crisis.
– Providing the salaries of 28,000 employees so that employees burdened with worries and obligations are not left in the wind of need without salaries.
– Payment of the annual allowance before the end of the current year and retroactively to all employees as an acquired right to justice.
– Installing all workers on the “daily” system or temporary contracts in all jobs and in all regions to the installation system on category (A).
– Stop the cancellation of jobs, as thousands of jobs have been canceled during the last period.
UNRWA’s failure to respond to this rightful demand will have political, security, social and health dimensions on the lives of refugees as well as on host countries, which will inevitably be exposed to a state of confusion that no one wants. For example:
– Pushing hundreds of thousands of students to the streets, With all its social and security dimensions.
– Threatening the health and lives of thousands of refugee patients who depend for their treatment on the weak health services provided by UNRWA.
– Threatening the food security of millions of refugees, who in light of the crises surrounding them depend on UNRWA to secure their minimum needs.
Therefore, the assessment of the situation surrounding this conflict, Says that UNRWA will not be able to continue to impose its unfair conditions on its staff, Given the implications this will have for host States, This will push everyone, especially donor countries, urgently to fill the deficit in the UNRWA budget. Ensuring that millions of Palestinian refugees do not pose a threat to the peace and security that the Zionist entity is keen on, To pass his plans of normalization with the surrounding and Islamic to appear a normal state in the region.
The UNRWA staff unions did well by giving the Agency’s management a written response by the beginning of this week on all these demands. After the one-month deadline that began immediately after the end of the last Amman conference, expired, The unions decided that the duration of the labor dispute would be 21 days as a goodwill gesture on their part to allow UNRWA management to respond to all demands of employees starting from the first of next November.
