AMMAN - Negotiations to end a week-long stalemate between Jafr residents and the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JPMC) reached a deadlock on Thursday as residents upheld their demands for jobs.
The residents insisted that JPMC should hire at least some of them to show good intentions, Senator Khaled Abu Tayeh said following mediation with the protesters.
Since Sunday, more than 350 unemployed protesters have brought JPMC operations in Eshidiya to a halt by disconnecting electricity and water supplies from the company which operates mines and a chemical plant there.
"The Vocational Training Corporation has offered to train 200 residents to qualify them for future jobs, but they refused the proposal and upheld their demands for employment at all costs," the senator told The Jordan Times in a telephone call.
Abu Tayeh indicated that around 135 of the job seekers are illiterate whereas some of them have a university degree in areas not related to the existing industries.
Besides financial losses, the JPMC is concerned that business instability may harm its market reputation and financing needs, a company chief employee, who requested anonymity, indicated.
The government must shoulder its responsibility to end this business disruption, he stressed, noting that the company is doing its part through taxes.
He said the company has hired 120 locals over the past three months to support the local community, adding that they cannot absorb more workers at this point.
Noting that around 10 of the protesters have university degrees and have not been able to get jobs for the past three years, a local dignitary claimed that company representatives have not been responsive to their needs.
"We are against disconnecting electricity and water, but the area's residents need jobs and company representatives, including 12 subcontractors who generate millions of dinars, must hear them out," he emphasised.
He also disclosed that the Jafr correctional centre, which has been converted into a training centre, has not opened as planned by the government to provide training services to the community, despite its investing around JD2 million into the project.
© Jordan Times 2011
