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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 12:07 am Post subject: A look at the treatment of Arab workers in Israel |
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I found this an interesting read. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a Canadian guy who worked illegally for a while in Israel (on a tourist visa) in the late 90s. He didn't like Palestinians much, but he didn't much like the way they were treated either. They worked for a fraction of his wage doing the same job, and were treated with utter contempt.
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A dog's life
by Seth Freedman
One way out of the impasse between Israel and Palestine could be for Israelis to treat their Arab workers better.
Out pounding the streets of Efrat the other day, (my cousin and co-blogger) Josh and I walked past a building site where a few labourers toiled away in the afternoon sun.
As we turned the corner, we saw another of the workers sitting down in the shade of an olive tree eating his lunch, so we stopped and struck up a conversation with him. What we learned from the brief chat served to reaffirm to us the atrocious state of affairs that exists for Palestinians who are "lucky" enough to find employment with Israeli contractors, who shamelessly exploit them with no regard for anything other than their own profit margins.
Clad in a ragged t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of an Israeli building company, Boel [not his real name] glanced furtively around him, then agreed to talk to us for a few minutes, while the coast was clear. And the coast needed to be clear for him to be able to converse with strangers, since the state of play in Efrat is such that Palestinian labourers are banned from every activity other than silently doing the job that they were employed to do. Contravention of the rules will result in his permit to work being instantly withdrawn, said Boel, "and I'll end up sitting outside my house all day, with no way to feed my family".
"If I want to go to collect supplies from the gate, the guard must come with me", he told us. "If I want to go to the toilet, the guard must come with me too. If I want to speak to anyone other than my fellow workers, the guard must be present. In fact, I can't even walk more than 20 metres away from the guard, otherwise he'll call the police and have me kicked out of the area." To all intents and purposes, Boel is afforded as much freedom as a rottweiler chained to a gatepost; his invisible shackles are closely monitored by the gun-toting guard, upon whose whims rest Boel's entire livelihood, and who must be treated with suitably fawning respect by Boel.
Boel receives 100 shekels (�11.75) a day for an eight-hour shift - equivalent to the pittance that the "basket children" earn in the Mahane Yehuda souk in downtown Jerusalem. However, even though the basket children's wages are pitiful, it is somewhat more understandable given that they are underage, unskilled workers. Boel, on the other hand, is in his mid-30s and has a wife and kids to feed - plus he's been working in the building trade for years.
Naturally, given the indifference of his employers - as well as the government, which refuses to enforce the labour laws - there is no insurance policy in place to assist Boel and his friends in the result of accident or injury. Boel laughed bitterly at the idea that anyone would care enough to provide such cover. "If I get hurt, then I don't work and I don't earn," he said. "Plus I have to deduct any medical expenses from the hundred shekels I earned that day."
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To finish reading: A Dog's Life |
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just alittlecrazy
Joined: 30 Nov 2006
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| Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 6:49 pm Post subject: |
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this issue is been looked at by the israeli knesset
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RAMALLAH, West Bank, 4 July 2007 — Palestinian workers employed in Israeli settlements and factories in the occupied West Bank earn less than half the minimum wage stipulated by law, a Knesset (Israeli parliament) study revealed yesterday. According to the data compiled ahead of a planned Committee on Foreign Workers Committee hearing, many of the Palestinian workers receive no health insurance or are insufficiently insured for work-related accidents.
Committee Chairman, M.K. Ran Cohen of leftist Meretz party, called for the discussion after receiving complaints about Palestinian workers’ conditions in Israel and the occupied territories. Some 18,000 Palestinians are employed in the West Bank’s settlements in the industrial, agricultural, construction and services sectors.
In order to receive a work permit Palestinians must carry a magnetic card issued by Israeli police and Shin Bet after passing a security check. Some 120,000 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip currently hold such cards, of which 22,000 have work in Israel.
Employers within Israel have quotas for the number of Palestinian workers: 13,500 in construction sector, 2,000 in factories and services sector, 3,500 in agriculture and 3,000 more in East Jerusalem and Atarot industrial zone in north Jerusalem. The employers in the West Bank, however, are not constricted by the number of Palestinians they employ.
Palestinian workers earn an average of between 11 to 13 shekels ($2.6-3.0) an hour and sometimes work over 10 hours a day, according to workers’ rights groups and the Israeli Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor. Such conditions exist because laws cannot be enforced due to lack of manpower and means, such as bulletproof vehicles, the study claimed.
Road safety laws and sanitation are not inspected properly because the official in charge of enforcement is employed on a part time basis and lacks the authority to fine businesses. “Due to the many testimonies of infringement of Palestinian workers’ rights by Israeli employers in the West Bank, it is worthy to probe whether employers comply to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor laws,” the study recommends. |
www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=98161&d=4&m=7&y=2007 |
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