Rania Al-Sarayrah
Amman - The Ministry of Labor's decision to charge workers for contracting the virus by deducting their sick and annual leave days, and from their wages if they exhaust these days, has drawn condemnation from labor activists, who believe the decision to suspend those infected with the pandemic is primarily a government decision, and that the workers are not to blame.
While no defense order or statement has been issued addressing how to calculate the days a worker spends confined to their home due to their infection with the “Corona” virus, the Ministry of Labor has resorted to issuing a clarification based on the labor law, which stipulates that the days of sick leave for an infected worker are deducted from their sick leave. If they do not have sick leave, it is deducted from their annual leave, and it is also deducted from their wages if they have used up all their annual and sick leave, according to the Director of the Central Inspection Directorate at the Ministry, Haitham Al-Najdawi.
Al-Najdawi told Al-Ghad that the ministry based its interpretation of this matter on the labor law, indicating that the worker can file a complaint if the employer resorts to deducting the days of his absence directly from his wages. He pointed out that the ministry received numerous complaints in this regard last year and dealt with them by directing the employer to the correct procedure and warning him of the violation if he did not comply.
For his part, the director of the Workers’ House, Hamada Abu Nijmeh, stressed that considering a worker’s absence due to his infection with the Coronavirus as sick leave “is illogical and does not conform to the nature of sick leave, which is a right of the worker and not an obligation.” Sick leave is inevitably linked to health problems and symptoms that the worker suffers from that prevent him from working. The worker benefits from it by submitting a request to the employer in which he proves through medical reports that his health condition does not allow him to work, and that he needs rest to protect his health from any complications or to receive treatment.
Abu Nijmeh said that the worker's suspension from work due to infection with the coronavirus was imposed under defense orders to protect others from the virus they carry and to prevent the spread of infection, not based on a request submitted by the worker, and without requiring the worker to be suffering from symptoms or health problems or to require rest, treatment, or hospitalization, as required by the Labor Law. This is especially true since infection with the new variants often does not cause any symptoms or its symptoms are mild and do not require hospitalization or even rest.
He added: “Therefore, obligating the worker to be absent without suffering from any symptoms of illness is not consistent with the objective and purpose of sick leave stipulated in Article 65 of the Labor Law, unless the worker himself suffers from symptoms that prevent him from performing work and being present at the workplace. Therefore, it is not permissible to deduct it from his sick leave balance or from his annual leave b