clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

UNRWA employees to strike

October 26, 2016 at 3:17 pm

The union for local employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) yesterday announced a two day strike starting today in the occupied Palestinian territory after talks with organisation reached an impasse.

A joint committee representing the unions of employees from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip said in a statement that the UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem, as well as all main offices and regional offices in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, would be completely closed on today and tomorrow.

The statement added that UNRWA employees in the health sector would also go on a two-hour strike on 2 November, and that all UNRWA-affiliated schools in the West Bank and Gaza would go on a two-hour strike on 3 November.

Further protests will be announced in the next few days, the committee said.

The joint committee blamed UNRWA’s administration for the failure of talks to resolve issues with local employees, saying that UNRWA’s “superiority and arrogance” was rejected by Palestinians who would “continue to protect the agency which they are loyal to, and which is a major witness to the suffering of Palestinian refugees.”

A spokesperson for UNRWA could not be reached for comment.

While UNRWA has denied allegations in the past that the changes to refugee services were an attempt to develop more cost-effective procedures in order to alleviate a financial crisis in the agency, Palestinians have accused the agency of sacrificing the well-being of Palestinian refugees in order to make up for their financial strains.

The UNRWA union staged strikes in August and September in the four countries receiving UNRWA services – the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan – to protest low salaries and staff shortages.

The head of a joint committee representing the union, Suheil Al-Hindi, at the time accused the UNRWA administration of not filling hundreds of vacant positions, claiming the UN agency “deliberately puts off hiring employees in order to win some time and save money at the expense of refugees.”

Al-Hindi called the current relationship between the UNRWA administration and the union “the worst ever”, and said that the workers’ union would carry out more protests if UNRWA did not meet their demands.