Shafaq News- Baghdad

More than 50 members of Iraq's Council of Representatives, the country's federal parliament, have signed a request to move contract employees in the Kurdistan Region onto permanent government payrolls through next year's federal budget bill, according to Bryar Rashid, a member of parliament from Al-Sulaymaniyah province in the Region's east.

The parliament's speaker signed the request and formally referred it to the legislature's Finance Committee for action, Rashid told Shafaq News.

The Kurdistan Region is a semi-autonomous, Kurdish-led area in northern Iraq that has its own government, parliament, and security forces but depends on the federal budget in Baghdad for much of its public-sector funding.

The request aims to secure the employment rights of contract workers in the region, many of whom have served for years without permanent appointment because of the financial crises the region has faced in recent years, Rashid said. Contract employees are hired on fixed-term agreements rather than appointed to the permanent civil service, which carries job security and full state benefits.

Rashid, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main parties that govern the Kurdistan Region, said he hoped the request would win support across parliamentary blocs and bring a resolution to the long-standing contract-employee file.

The request now rests with parliament's Finance Committee, which was asked to take the necessary measures, according to Rashid.