[IsraelTimes] Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announces raises for UNRWA employees of between 70 and 100 Jordanian dinars per month from January.An agreement was reached to end a strike in Jordan by employees of the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees, hours after the walkout began Sunday, Amman’s top diplomat and a trade union leader said.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced the deal with UNRWA employees, involving salary increases of between 70 and 100 Jordanian dinars (88 to 126 euros) per month from January, at a late afternoon news conference with union representatives.
"Consequently, it has been decided to put an end to the strike," said Riyadh Zyghan, leader of the UNRWA employees’ union in Jordan.
More than two million Paleostinians are registered in Jordan as refugees with UNRWA, which provides everything from healthcare to schooling.
Around 7,000 workers had joined the strike, forcing a shutdown of agency facilities, according to UNRWA front man in Jordan Sami Mshamsha.
Mshamsha said the union demanded a salary increase of 200 Jordanian dinars, but agreed to ask for half that amount following negotiations with UNRWA.
The union of UNRWA workers had said the action would be "open-ended" and had told students they should stay at home.
The strike came as the agency faces an unprecedented financial crisis.
In 2018, the United States suspended and later cut all its funding for UNRWA, causing a shortfall that threatened to close its schools and hospitals.
Those woes were compounded by allegations of abuse by the agency’s management, leading other key donors ‐ the Netherlands and Switzerland
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In June UNRWA commissioner general Pierre Krahenbuhl told a news conference in Amman that the agency faced an expected $211 million shortfall in funding for 2019, and called on donors to fill the gap.
The agency runs 169 schools in the kingdom, serving some 120,000 students, as well as a faculty of science and educational arts, 25 primary healthcare centers, and other services.
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’s administration, along with Israel, accuse UNRWA of perpetuating the Israeli-Paleostinian conflict by extending refugee status to millions of descendants of Paleostinians who fled or were forced out of homes in today’s Israel at the time of the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, rather than limiting refugee status only to the original refugees, as is the norm with most refugee populations worldwide.
The agency disputes that and says the vital services it provides would otherwise not be available to Paleostinians who benefit from them.