International Workers’ Day
The world celebrates the Workers ‘ Day on the first day of May every year. The Knights of Labor, founded in 1869 as a trade union organization that seeks to improve workers’ conditions and reduce working hours, have introduced this event.
Later, with the development of the trade union movement, a group of trade union leaders succeeded in forming a workers’ body in 1886. This body campaigned to consider 1 May of that year as a day of general strike with the aim to reduce working hours to eight only in all professions and industries. In 1890, the founding congress of the labor parties decided that the first of May would be regarded as a feast for workers of the world. Interest in the Workers’ Day took on a global dimension and is celebrated annually around the world.
The labor movement in Jordan was one of the first labor movements in the Arab world, where the Jordan Workers ‘Union was founded in 1954. It was one of the Arab workers’ unions that have participated in the establishment of the Arab Workers’ Union. Representatives of the Jordanian union have participated in the First Founding Conference in addition to most of the meetings and activities at the Arab level. For more than half a century, the Jordanian labor movement has made substantial progress, benefiting from positive conditions, high national spirit, constructive cooperation and keenness to protect the country’s interests along with all development partners, which led to the growth and advancement of the movement.
With the enactment of several public safety control laws issued by the concerned government agencies, the number of serious work injuries has diminished. The number of insured workers with the Social Security Corporation has increased significantly from 366,000 workers in the year 2000 to 1,227,110 in 2016.The monthly wage rate has increased from JD.60 in the mid-1970s to JD.211 in the mid-1990s and then rising to JD.493 in 2016.
