Amman, 27 April 2020 - Governments around the world have taken precautionary and preventive measures to besiege the emerging pandemic of the Corona virus. Jordan has followed in the steps of the rest of the world and enacted numerous precautionary measures. The most important of the decisions it took is the declaration of the Defense Law of 1992 and its amendments, followed by a number of decisions according to it. The second of these decisions and arguably the most important is the announcement of the curfew in the Kingdom. As a result, the all public and private establishments were closed except for those deemed as working in vital sectors. These decisions have impacted the lives of Jordanian and non-Jordanian alike, as the resulting circumstances affected Jordanians, migrant workers as well as refugees.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Labor launched a hotline to receive complaints of workers in the private sector regarding government decisions at this stage, as well as the Ministry's instructions released related to them. The hotline allows private sector employees to report their complaints, whether through phone or electronically about any violations or abuses that occur to them. Employers on the other hand can ask inquiries about the measures that they must take towards their workers, to ensure that they are abiding by the Ministry of Labor’s regulations in the current situation.

Since the start of the public holiday, Tamkeen for Legal Aid and Human Rights has decided to provide its services to workers in all sectors. The organization thus began receiving complaints from the workers and then sending them to the Ministry of Labor. It also monitored the Ministry’s follow up mechanisms regarding these complaints to ensure that workers have been provided with the needed assistance.

Since the onset of the crisis, the Tamkeen team has monitored approximately 64 cases where workers decided to file a complaint against their employers for violating their labor rights. These cases are out of more than 800 cases that Tamkeen has received from workers about labor violations. However, the majority of workers have refused to submit complaints for fear that their services will be terminated and especially in light of the difficulty in obtaining another job opportunity.

Throughout this period, the most persistent violations that the Tamkeen team has monitored include: Forced Labor in violation of government decisions in accordance with Article 77 of the Labor Law; dismissal from work or threats to do so; forcibly signing illegal endorsements by the employer; workers being forced to work in a facility that is closed even though it violates the current decisions by the government; and failure of paying wages either for the months of March or even February, contrary to the government’s decisions and the Ministry of Labor’s instructions.

In light of Tamkeen’s experience of submitting these complaints through the hotline, a number of issues were noted; namely, related to the weakness in response and replying to the hotline, which may lead to depriving workers of their rights.

Accordingly, Tamkeen reports the most important observations about the Ministry of Labor hotline and the website for receiving complaints. The observations are as follows:

1. From the beginning of the crisis on the 18^th of March to April 10^th, response to the hotline was good and a number of complaints were reported regarding workers in various facilities.
2. From April 11 till the writing of the report, the response has been somewhat weak, as most calls were not answered. Tamkeen currently has a a team of 5 people tasked with using the Hotline through the announced Ministry of Labor numbers. These five members have reported that there has been no  response to their attempts. It should be noted that these calls were made at different times starting from 9 in the morning and ending at 2 in the morning.
3. An example of a non-response occurred on April 23^rd when the Ministry of Labor was contacted through its line 53 times, starting from 9 in the morning until 5 in the evening by 3 people from Tamkeen’s team without success or response to any communication attempts.
4. In other cases, on different dates, the call was answered after nearly 20 attempts.
5. On April 23 and following numerous attempts, the call was received by an employee at 9:55, but he refused to receive the complaint by Tamkeen, adding that the worker must be the one to submit it himself. Such a step constitutes a problem as many workers ask Tamkeen to submit their complaints on their behalf for several reasons, the most important of which is their fear of having their services terminated if the employer learned of their submission of the complaint.
6. Through Tamkeen’s Facebook page, Tamkeen received remarks from male and female workers who tried to communicate with the Ministry of Labor on numerous occasions on the hotline, but received no answer
7. Another comment received through Facebook was regarding workers who used the Ministry of Labor’s hotline and their calls were answered. However, in such cases the many workers said that they were told by employee that they do not have the information that is needed by the worker or that the relevant decisions are unclear, or even hangs the phone without answering.
8. With regard to the website, Tamkeen's team noted that a number of workers who said that they submitted a complaint through it have not received any follow-ups regarding their case.
9. The electronic service has limitations as there are foreign workers who cannot deal with the available language to file a complaint.
10. Additionally, there is an issue related to the mechanism followed by the website as it requires workers to write their name when they want to submit a complaint, which may prevent workers from filing one for fear of the employer.

Accordingly, Tamkeen recommends that a review is conducted on the mechanism currently used receiving complaints from workers. It also recommends that the website’s interface be translated to more than one language.

It is also essential that both the Ministry’s phones, hotlines and the website: https://hemayeh.jo are monitored and evaluated to ensure that workers are in fact being provided with efficient services that protects them and follow up on their complaints.