Since late March 2020, Better Work staff have used the period of factory production suspension due to Covid-19 in Jordan to reach out via phone calls to workers and line management personnel. Calls have continued as production began to resume. The original purpose of the calls was to get a sense of the issues facing workers, to see how they were coping with the lockdown situation and limited mobility, and to provide information to workers on issues ranging from updates on the latest labour laws to Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), and how to cope with stress. This Brief summarizes the key outcomes and topics of conversations of more than 1,000 calls to individuals working in the sector during this period of industry disruption.

Workers expressed concerns about a variety of topics throughout the phone calls. One of the primary areas of concern was self-safety and family safety. Workers also expressed concerns about payments, contracts, and unpaid leaves, but some of these improved over time especially as workers returned to work. The single largest issue that workers expressed concerns about was family safety, with 291/825 (35.27%) asking questions and voicing concerns about family safety. In addition, workers were also worried about the length of the curfew and when they would be able to return to work 227/825 (27.52%).