U.N. Employees in Jordan Strike for Higher Wages

By BENNY AVNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 8, 2008

UNITED NATIONS — Recipients of U.N. salaries in refugee camps in Jordan went on strike yesterday, demanding a wage increase they say is needed to offset the rising cost of living.

The 7,000 strikers draw salaries from the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which provides services for descendants of Arabs who fled or otherwise left British Mandate Palestine during Israel's 1948 war of independence. While UNRWA employees have gone on strike before, yesterday's walkout is "the first I can recall in Jordan," the director of the agency's liaison office in New York, Andrew Whitley, said.

The 177 schools UNRWA runs in Jordan, attended by 120,000 children under the age of 14, were forced to close yesterday because of the strike, the Associated Press reported, while the agency's 24 clinics operated with a skeleton staff. "We would like to think it won't take long" before the strike is settled, although the organization cannot raise salaries, Mr. Whitley said.

Palestinian Arabs recognized as refugees by the United Nations are barred from obtaining citizenship or any other non-refugee status in their host countries — Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria — where they have resided for several generations. U.N.-run camps, where residents are defined as refugees and where UNRWA is the largest employer, are also in the West Bank, large parts of which are governed by the Palestinian Authority, and in Gaza, which Hamas controls.

American and European Union donations largely fund UNRWA, whose 2007 general budget was $487.1 million, according to its Web site. Still, the agency ended 2007 with a deficit of $100 million, Mr. Whitley said. "Our donors are doing their best," he said. Since UNRWA's founding in 1949, America has contributed $3.4 billion, but after the Bush administration requested a supplement of $35 million in emergency assistance last year, the U.S. House of Representatives ordered an audit of the agency to ensure that the funds are not going to terrorists. UNRWA initially registered 914,000 Arabs as refugees after the 1948 war; today, the agency recognizes 4.5 million of their descendants as refugees. Also in 1948, around 800,000 Jews fled or otherwise left Arab countries; most are now Israeli citizens. Last week, the House adopted a resolution recognizing them as refugees.