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31.03.02

A Job to Win

On December 31st 2001, the Israeli government took a decision (No. 1411) to cut the number of permits for the import of foreign construction workers from 45,000 to 23,000. The measure came after Israel’s worst economic year since 1953. Industrial production shrank in 2001 by 5.7%. After five quarters of negative growth rate, the country had its highest-ever level of unemployment (10.2%).

By cutting the number of permits for foreign labor, the government seeks to put the local jobless back to work. It wants to reduce the amount it doles out in unemployment compensation and welfare, while diminishing social pressures that grow with unemployment.

In the background is the memory of October 2000, when the Arabs in Israel joined the new Intifada. They were motivated not only by solidarity with their kin in the Occupied Territories, but also by their own particular misery: unemployment rates in their localities had topped 20% (where they remain). A major cause was the import of low-paid workers from Romania and China into the construction industry, which had been a principal source of Arab employment.

Key figures in the then ruling Labor Party saw the connection. Fearing an Arab revolt, they refused to grant additional permits for foreign labor. The IBA (Israeli Builders and Contractors' Association) petitioned the High Court to lift the ban. The government caved in, granting the contractors most of their requests.

Now the fight is on again, only this time all can see that the country faces economic disaster. After the government again cut the number of permits, the IBA appealed once more to the High Court. On February 18, WAC (The Workers Advice Center) asked the court to let it join in the response against the contractors.

WAC's request puts the fate of thousands of Arab construction workers, citizens of Israel, on the public agenda. These workers have fallen victim, since 1993, to cozy deals between the national Employment Service and the building contractors, enabling the latter to line their pockets by bringing in foreign workers. The deals, which bear an odor reminiscent of the slave trade, have been a major blow to the local work force.

As a public body representing the interests of Arab workers, WAC contends that the High Court, in considering the contractors' petition, is under obligation to take these workers into account. If the court does not allow WAC and its members to respond, the discussion between the contractors and the Ministry of Labor will take place, WAC holds, on a purely theoretical plane. The judges need to know the reality on the ground, as seen through the eyes of the affected workers. They can only learn this from the workers themselves or their public representative.

As an appendix to its request, WAC has provided an affidavit describing three of its struggles, extending over seven years, against large contracting firms: A. Dori, A. Arenson, and Danya Cebus. In each case, the firm set out to replace local Arabs, who were earning relatively decent wages, with cheap foreign labor.

The confrontation with A. Dori occurred in 1995. Dori imported Romanians, replacing dozens of Arab workers from Sakhnin in Galilee. Some of the latter had worked many years for the company. In certain projects, Dori sent letters of dismissal, claiming the need for reductions in staff. There were no such reductions, however: the very next day, foreign workers took the place of the Arabs. WAC complained to the Employment Service – to no avail.

In the case of the Arenson Corporation, the company invited 280 jobless Arabs to interviews for a major project in Migdal ha-Emek. This city lies near Nazareth, a major center of Arab unemployment. WAC followed the company's persistent attempt to wriggle out of hiring the workers and to classify them as job refusers. One group, accompanied by WAC, survived the gauntlet of humiliations and ploys. On what was to be their first day of work, the company turned them away at the gate. WAC brought them back the next morning for a demonstration, complete with media coverage. Within minutes, an Arenson representative agreed to receive them for work. They wound up as the only Arab laborers, twelve in number, beside four hundred Romanians.

The third case described in the affidavit, involving Danya Cebus, occurred this year. At a project in Kiryat Yam (near Haifa), the company hired twenty Arab workers in early January but replaced them a few weeks later with Romanians and Chinese. Through correspondence with Danya Cebus, WAC learned that as a result of Decision No. 1411, the company temporarily lost its permit to employ foreign labor. That is why it took on the local Arabs, for each of whom it was supposed to pay a daily wage of 290 shekels (about $70) to a local personnel company. (The company, in turn, rakes off its percentage and then pays the worker.) Later in January, however, Danya Cebus succeeded in renewing its permit to import labor. It turned to the personnel company with a "generous offer": it would keep the Arabs, provided they accepted a wage cut to 200 shekels per day. When the Arab workers refused, they were fired. WAC complained to the company, urging it to take them back. Danya Cebus countered by saying, quite simply, that it doesn't make sense to employ local workers when you can get the same labor at a cheaper rate from foreigners.

These three examples, along with many individual cases also mentioned in WAC's affidavit, point to a system: Since 1993, when the government first permitted the import of unorganized and unprotected construction labor, the local Arab workers have lost their bargaining power. For decades they had been the mainstay of the building industry. Now, by the tens of thousands, they are unemployed.

Those who have managed to keep their jobs have had to forgo social benefits – the vast majority, for example, no longer have a pension fund. Many have been forced to take work with contractors of uncertain financial stability: often the checks bounce. The Insurance Fund of Construction Workers has issued a report showing a drop in membership from 25,000 in 1994 to 4,500 in the year 2000.

Time after time, in fact, the government has announced its desire to reduce the number of foreign workers – only to cave in. WAC has asked the Court to let it join the proceeding, because we suspect that this time too the government and the IBA will reach an agreement at the expense of the local Arabs.

Where in all this, one may ask, is the Histadrut (the National Labor Federation)? In 1999, it signed a special collective agreement with the IBA, excluding foreign workers from the framework of earlier collective agreements. The new document has enabled the contractors to exploit foreign workers to the hilt, further weakening the position of local Arabs.

Taking advantage of the poverty in third-world countries, employers seek to divide the working class, pitting foreign labor against local. WAC's position is not to be confused with a guild-like exclusiveness. We are alert to the interests of the working class both locally and in the wider world. The easy exploitation of foreign workers points up how vital it is to preserve the gains of organized labor.

From Challenge # 72 (March-April 2002)