UN Staffers Strike in Jordan Over Pay

AP via SFGate ^ | 4/7/8 | JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer

[SmithL]

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- About 7,000 employees of a U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees staged a strike in Jordan on Monday to demand pay hikes to help cover the spiraling cost of food and fuel.

The one-day protest forced the closure of 177 schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which serves more than 120,000 Palestinian children under the age of 14. The agency's 24 clinics across the country were run by a skeleton staff.

"The strike certainly disrupted UNRWA's services in Jordan today," agency spokesman Matar Saqer said.

The agency was created after the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948 to provide displaced Palestinians with education, health care and other services. It now helps 4.4 million refugees in camps in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

"We can barely make ends meet in view of the high prices,"

[SmithL]

If we cut their pay, will the entire UN go on strike????

[abstracTT]

*hold on while i squeeze out a tear

[Enchante]

pay raise?

I have a much better idea, let’s finally ABOLISH the abysmal UNRWA!! Demand that each country incorporate Pali “refugees” where they are now, and no more b.s. about people “returning” to a place they (virtually all of them now) have never lived.