Democratic Palestine : 6 (ص 21)
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- Democratic Palestine : 6 (ص 21)
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followed the increase in oil prices in
1973, the increased aid from oil-produc-
ing countries and the relocation to Jor-
dan of the regional headquarters of
many companies and industrial com-
plexes after the civil war in Lebanon. An
additional factor is the Iran-Iraq war
which has increased Iraq's demand for
Jordanian products.
Normally these new factors would
have opened great work opportunities
but, on the contrary, the emigration of
workers has increased whilé the immi-
gration of expatriate workers to Jordan
has risen. A study published by the
Royal Scientific Society regarding the
Jordanian labor force indicated that in
1983, the number of Jordanians working
outside the country totaled approxi-
mately 305,000, according to the Minis-
try of Labor. Most of these are working in
the Gulf states. In the same year, there
were 125,000 non-Jordanians working
in Jordan, of which 89.6% were Egyp-
tians.* The number of expatriate workers
has continued to rise. For example, non-
Jordanians now constitute half of the
4,500 workers in Jordan's ports.§
The two sides of this issue - the
emigration of Jordanian workers and the
immigration of non-Jordanian workers -
clearly reveal that this situation is the
result of a planned policy in accordance
with the regime’s political, security and
economic considerations. The Jorda-
nian regime aims at forcing the largest
number of the country’s workers to
emigrate in order to achieve a number of
results, chiefly:
1. To disperse the working class
and its vanguard forces in order to
weaken its ability to confront the
regime's corrupt policies on the social,
economic and political levels. Related to
this, to make it impossible for the work-
ing class to organize and prepare to
struggle for the social, economic, politi-
cal and union rights which have been
violated regularly.
2. To remove the largest possible
number of citizens from Jordan which is
potentially a main arena for confronting
the Zionist enemy. This should reduce
the mass pressure on the regime to
adopt a nationalist position opposing the
US imperialist and Israeli policies, for
this would definitely be contrary to the
regime's class structure and interests.
3. To gain additional income for the
country through remittances (the money
which those working abroad send back
to their families). This money is chan-
neled into service projects _ that
strengthen the existing corrupt struc-
ture. Also the regime benefits from this
money when it is deposited in banks, for
it can then be invested in new projects
that serve the regime's interests.
4.To assist other reactionary
regimes with their labor crisis: Jordan
exports labor to countries where there is
a shortage, like the Gulf states, and
imports labor from countries, such as
Egypt, where there is a surplus.
Workers - an import-export
commodity for the regime
For more than a decade, the
number of Jordanian workers emigrat-
ing has been on the rise, as has the
number of expatriate workers entering
Jordan. The number of Jordanians
working abroad jumped from 250,300 in
1980, to 305,000 in 1983. Parallel to this
was the doubling of expatriate workers
in Jordan, from 61,300 in 1982, to
130,000 in 1983. This figure obviously
points to the dire need for workers in Jor-
dan. This then raises the question of why
and to whose benefit does the Jordanian.
regime force native workers and qual-
ified personnel to emigrate, substituting
expatriate labor.
Jordanian officials claim that Jor-
dan benefits from labor emigration due
to the remittances sent back to the coun-
try. They fail to admit that this money is
not utilized for production or develop-
ment projects. This is not the only fact
that exposes the falsity of the claims
made by Jordanian officials concerning
the ‘benefits’ of labor emigration. A quick
glance at statistics shows the real extent
of this trend: 50% of those working in
production are expatriates, as are 60%
of construction workers. Non-Jorda-
nians constitute 52% of the total popula-
tion of the Irbid province which is Jor-
dan’'s agricultural center; from this figure
one can infer that a large majority of the
agricultural labor force is imported.
The Jordanian Labor Ministry has
tried to justify this trend by attributing it to
three main factors that have been pres-
suring the labor market since 1974:
21
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