{"id":3183,"date":"2026-07-15T13:14:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sldp.ngo\/?p=3183"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:42:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:42:47","slug":"labour-law-reform-is-central-to-syrias-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sldp.ngo\/en\/blog\/3183","title":{"rendered":"Labour law reform is central to Syria’s recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

July 15, 2026 \u00a0 \u00a0| |\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This post is also available in: Arabic<\/a>
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Last month, Syria saw a wave of strikes across several private-sector companies. It began at a ceramics factory south of Damascus. Workers at Zanobiya Ceramics not only demanded higher pay, but also raised concerns about medical care, health insurance, first aid, and the presence of a doctor at the facility. <\/p>\n

The strike quickly moved beyond one factory. Similar protests and sit-ins appeared in other private-sector companies, including al-Hafez and Madar. The takeaway is clear: robust labour rights protections should not be treated as a matter of secondary concern, but rather as vital to the strength and durability of Syria’s recovery.<\/p>\n

Syria\u2019s international commitments<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the primary guarantor of human rights, the transitional government is under a range of obligations under international law. Syria has been a party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) since 1969. Under Article 6, states recognise the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to gain a living by work they freely choose or accept, and must take appropriate steps to safeguard this right. Article 7 goes further, recognising the right of everyone to just and favourable conditions of work: fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value; a decent living for workers and their families; safe and healthy working conditions; equal opportunity for promotion; and rest, reasonable working hours, and paid holidays.<\/p>\n

Read alongside the ICESCR’s prescription of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to health, these provisions describe precisely the demands the Zanobiya workers raised. Further, as a longstanding ILO member, Syria has ratified the organisation’s fundamental conventions, including those on freedom of association and the right to organise and bargain collectively (Nos. 87 and 98), equal remuneration (No. 100), non-discrimination (No. 111) and the abolition of forced labour (Nos. 29 and 105), as well as the Labour Inspection Convention (No. 81) and, notably, the Occupational Safety and Health Convention (No. 155)\u2014one of the first Arab states to do so. On paper, then, the safe and healthy working conditions the Zanobiya workers demanded are already the subject of a binding commitment.<\/p>\n

The problem, therefore, is not a matter of a missing signature but rather the gap between ratification and enforcement: workers still had to stop production to ask for first aid, a doctor on site, and basic health cover that Convention No. 155 already obliges the state to ensure.<\/p>\n

The remaining gaps compound this. Syria has not ratified the Occupational Safety and Health promotional-framework convention (No. 187), the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (No. 102) or the Minimum Wage Fixing Convention (No. 131)\u2014instruments that would anchor social protection and a wage that tracks the cost of living. Ratifying and, above all, implementing these standards should be treated as central to reform. But the delay in reforming, strengthening, and enforcing better protections should not signal to businesses an absence of responsibility. Under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, businesses have an independent responsibility to respect human rights, which includes the rights protected by the ICESCR and ILO Conventions.<\/p>\n

The problem with \u2018compliance\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

When workers at Zanobiya struck in demand of stronger economic and social protections, decent wages amid deteriorating living conditions, a safe working environment, social protection, health insurance, and first aid, the company responded by pointing to its compliance with labour law. Therein lies the problem. Inadequate labour laws that do not reflect or adhere to international standards can turn \u2018compliance\u2019 into a shield, and where the law itself falls short, meeting it may still constitute a failure of the state to fulfil a range of international legal obligations: the right to just and favourable conditions of work, an adequate standard of living and the right to health, among others.<\/p>\n

A business model that survives by keeping workers below subsistence level is not sustainable, and a legal framework that permits it is not fit for the recovery Syrians want to build. Reform means enforceable minimum wages that meet living costs, regular labour inspection, genuine health and safety obligations, and reliable channels for workplace complaints. Protecting the rights of workers does not constitute a hurdle on Syria’s road to recovery, but rather a viable pathway thereto.<\/p>\n

A test of the new Syria<\/strong><\/p>\n

The government and the private sector must not lose sight of the fact that workers are not incidental to reconstruction; they are integral to it. Recovery must support those whose labour drives it. Respecting workers’ rights does not impose burdens on employers or encumber them, but rather sustains recovery and business over the long term, building an economy that can endure rather than one that runs on the exhaustion of the people who hold it up. This is not only a question of economics. Demands for social and economic rights, for dignity, fair wages and a life not defined by deprivation, were among the very grievances that drove the Syrian revolution. To fall short with workers at such a critical moment in the nation’s history would betray the values of a movement to which so many devoted, and lost, their lives, workers among them. If Syria is to transition into a just, rights-respecting democracy in which every citizen is treated equitably, then reforming its labour law is not a peripheral or technical adjustment but a fundamental part of that project, one measure of whether the new Syria will honour the promises made in the name of those who fought for it.<\/p>\n

Written by: Alreem Kamal, Legal Officer, Human Rights & Business Unit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n