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our site: www.workersadvicecenter.org
WAC's e-Report No. 13 January February 2007
Assaf Adiv
The January - February report includes 1. WAC-Ma'an delegation to visit Britain on March 11. 2. WAC initiates International Labour Delegation to Israel & Palestine (April 25 – May 1, 2007). 3. WAC opposes increasing the number of foreign agricultural workers in Israel. 4. Arab women, members of WAC demonstrate for jobs in Tel-Aviv on International Women's Day. 5. A delegation of WAC's farm workers participates in a Knesset Committee meeting. 6. WAC negotiates an agreement with Isrotel Hotels to recruit and organize hundreds of workers in Eilat. 7. WAC's intervention prevents enforcement of an injurious employment arrangement for temporary workers at Educational Television. 8. Summary of a meeting about construction workers with the deputy-head of the Planning Division at the Housing Ministry. 9. Israeli government extends the Wisconsin Plan. 10. A new WAC center opens in Kufr Manda. 11. Victors of WAC's soccer tournament: Arab and Jewish workers of the Lito Company.
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1. WAC delegation to visit British labor unions in March
A delegation composed of three leading members of WAC (the Workers' Advice Center) will visit Britain in the week starting March 11. It will include WAC's National Coordinator, Mr. Assaf Adiv; its Women's Coordinator, Ms. Khitam Na'amneh; and its International Relations officer, Ms. Roni Ben Efrat.
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From left: Roni Ben Efrat, Khitam Na'amneh, Assaf Adiv
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2. International Labour Delegation to Israel & Palestine (April 25 – May 1- 2007) will check the situation of the Migrant and Arab workers in Israeli Agriculture.
A delegation of Labour & Trade Union representatives will visit Israel and Palestine at the end of April as part of WAC’s involvement in the conditions and employment of farm workers in Israel. The sophisticated Israeli agricultural is based on slave labour of migrant Thai workers, who are imported as bonded servents of individual Farmers, while local Arab workers remain unemployed. The aim of the visit is to share experiences with unions that defend workers in agriculture, that deal with the conditions of migrant labor and that organize women workers. We hope that together we can pressure Israel's government to regulate the job market in this sector and to abide by international labor laws.
If you are interested in joining the delegation or getting your Union / Organization to join please contact us immediately. You may write to WAC’s international relations officer Roni Ben Efrat at:
oda@netvision.net.il
– In the subject please write “Labor Delegation”. A report on a delegation conducted by WAC in 2004
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3. Stopping the import of foreign workers for agricultural work:
WAC is leading the struggle against the importing of foreign workers for employment in the agricultural sector. Importing workers from abroad for this sector means closing off employment opportunities to Arab women. In early January 2007, just a few days after the state budget was passed, Ehud Olmert's government approved to import an additional 3,000 foreign workers for the agricultural sector. This step drew trenchant criticism from the economic establishment, because it was understood as a concession by the government to the lobby of farmers/interested parties. The latter prefer employing Thai workers at NIS 11 per hour ($2.6) over Arab workers at minimum wage of NIS 19.3 ($4.5) who receive also social benefits (vacation, holidays, recuperation etc.)
"The cabinet decided yesterday to increase the number of foreign agricultural laborers allowed to work in Israel by 3,000, from 26,000 to 29,000. The Agriculture Ministry, which proposed the quota increase, claims that each new foreign worker will enable the employment of an additional Israeli in ancillary services such as packaging, transport and pest control. But Ma'an, the Workers Advice Center, slammed the decision, saying that the foreign workers will take jobs away from Arab agricultural laborers and thereby increase unemployment." www.haaretz.com
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Wac members pick persimmon
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4. On International Women's Day, March 8th,
WAC – Ma'an will organize a women's march in the center of Tel Aviv under the call "Women Demand Work." Expected to participate are hundreds of Arab women working in the agricultural sector organized by the WAC as well as many supporters from the Israeli left and the women groups. The march will be followed by a panel discussion in the Tel Aviv Cinimateque. Speakers will be: Prof. Frances Radai, Michal Shwartz, Arabia Mansur, Dr. Esther Herzog, Denis As'ad, Asma Aghbaria, Shevy Korzen and Wafa Tiara. Moderator will be Khitam Na'amneh.
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March 8 2006: WAC members demonstrate for jobs
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5. Agricultural workers in the Knesset:
In the wake of the government's hotly-debated decision, the Knesset committee on the issue of foreign workers held a special meeting to discuss the situation of employees in the sector. Facing the lobby of farmers and the MKs who support them - who fervently defended the demand to bring more foreign workers to Israel – was a delegation of members of the WAC/Ma'an. Among them were Nur and Wafa Tiara and Danny Ben-Simhon. Nur Tiara has worked in agriculture for the past two years and heads a group of ten workers from Kfar Qar'a. Wafa worked in Agriculture for several years and is now a field coordinator of WAC. Danny Ben-Simhon coordinates agricultural and construction work placement in the 'Triangle' area. Nur and Wafa's appearance before the committee attracted a lot of empathy and attention. Both refuted the farmers' claims that they employ foreign workers because no one is willing to work in agriculture. Wafa added that if farmers offer decent wages and social rights, thousands of workers from Arab communities can be recruited to work in agriculture. Due to worsening poverty, many Arab women must go out to work, but the only work offered them is via sub-contractors who do not pay a fair wage (NIS 80 per day, instead of the minimum – NIS 150).
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Siham Alawi, WAC member at work
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6. WAC to organize workers in the hotels sector:
A governmental decision to stop authorizing the employment of foreign workers in Eilat, effective 1 February 2007, has created pressure on the hotels there, most of which belong to four international chains (Isrotel, Fattal, Sheraton and Club Hotel) to find a solution to the problem. In collaboration with the Employment Service, several meetings were held during January to which WAC was invited as an organization with significant experience in recruiting workers from the Arab community. It is worth mentioning that since the beginning of the 90's (after the first Intifada) the Hotels in Eilat fired all Arab workers and replaced them with cheap migrant workers. WAC has documented this process and struggled for a decade to change this course and to open Eilat Tourist industry in front of Arab workers again. Now we have reached an agreement with Isrotel, and similar agreements could be signed with the other companies. Workers will be paid NIS 5000 net (909 EU), plus social benefits according to the collective agreement applicable in the hospitality sector, as well as government grants and training in the hospitality sector. Under the agreement, the WAC will visit Eilat each month. All the workers recruited by WAC are members in the association - which represents them before the company. On 31 January, Isrotel held a day of interviews to take on workers at the WAC office in Kufr Manda. Isrotel is expected to hold several days of interviews and to absorb up to 250 workers on the basis of its agreement with WAC.
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Interview and registration day for workers in hotels at WAC's center in Kufr Manda
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7. WAC aims at stopping a plan to enforce a harmful employment arrangement on temporary workers in the Educational Television (ETV).
WAC wrote to the general manager of ETV, asking her to cancel the new arrangement
Mr. Rahamim Laniado, Deputy General Secretary of the Histadrut's Civil Servants Union, made it clear in a conversation with the WAC's National Coordinator, that the Histadrut sees WAC's support for the temporary workers as positive "we all have the same aim" he said. Mr. Laniado stated that the Histadrut considers all ETV workers – both permanent and temporary - as civil servants entitled to all the rights accruing to them, and that ETV is operating against the law. WAC will continue to expose ETV's illegal operations and force it to recognize that its workers are entitled to full rights.
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Summer 2006: demonstration in front of the ETV building in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv
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8. Safety regulations - WAC representatives meet with a Housing Ministry representative:
on 20 December 2006 members of WAC met with Mr. Yossi Shabbat - deputy-head of the Information & Planning department at the Housing Ministry. Meeting was held at the initiative of Mr. Shabbat and it centered on the question of training workers for the building sector. WAC representatives, Assaf Adiv and Danny Ben-Simhon, presented a gloomy picture of the sector - which has moved from employing foreigners to employing Israelis, but at the same time has become a sector where anarchy rules in terms of employment methods, supervision of workers rights, and compliance with safety instructions. WAC emphasizes the gravity of the situation in terms of work safety, and the serious rise in fatal accidents as a result of the anarchy prevailing in the sphere. Mr. Shabbat summarized the meeting in official minutes disseminated by the commissioner for the planning and information division, Ms. Rachel Hollander, in which WAC's claims were officially approved. This is likely to advance the option that a state program will be launched to curb the exploitation of building workers and promoting the agenda of organized labor.
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WAC member Muhammad Ali Haj in hospital after work injury (his full story in Challenge no. 98)
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9. Debate over the Wisconsin Plan grows acrimonious.
Stringent public criticism against the Wisconsin plan has been voiced by social organizations including WAC. Mr. Eli Yishai, Minister of Trade & Industry, who is responsible for the program's implementation is a member of Shas, which has its power-base among disadvantaged sections of the population who suffer from the program. In the past few weeks, these two factors have intensified the public debate over the plan's future. Despite declarations by Minister Yishai as if he intends to revoke the program, on Sunday 4 February, the government reached a decision to enforce changes in the program that would ensure its continued operation. WAC operates a Wisconsin Watch program, in three of the four centers of the program. Its activists have helped hundreds of unemployed people coping with the convoluted bureaucracy of the Plan. In addition, it provides legal aid to applicants who have been harmed by the Wisconsin Plan. A detailed report by WAC on the issue of vocational training in the Wisconsin plan framework was published in February; it shows that the companies operating in the program are uninterested in training and the unemployed, Instead, they devote all their resources to removing people from the list of benefit-receivers, and classifying them as unskilled workers - who are then totally subject to the hardhearted contractors and personnel companies that control the job market. A position paper by the WAC Association on the question of the Wisconsin plan is available at: www.workersadvicecenter.org/eli_yishai.html
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Samya Nasser, WAC activist distributes leaflets in front of a Wisconsin center
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10. A new office in Kufr Manda:
WAC has opened another office. The sixth office is in Kufr Manda, north-west of Nazareth. On 23 December 2006, WAC inaugurated the new office. Taking part were 40 WAC activists in the village, public figures, and workers organized in the WAC framework. The association's office serves as a center for workers seeking jobs in farming, construction and hotels. It also offers a course training women in basket-weaving, in collaboration with Sindyanna of Galilee.
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From the openning event of the center in kufr Manda
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11. The annual WAC football tournament:
60 workers took part in the WAC 2007 cup tournament. This is the fifth year running that the tournament has been held. Shadi Masrawa and Kevin Hizgilov, from the Lito Group factory, won the cup overcoming the group of construction workers from Um el Fahem by a score of 4-3. The games were held on Saturday 27 January 2007 in the sports auditorium at Kibbutz Ma'anit in Wadi Ara. Taking part were groups of building workers from Nazareth, a group of metal industry workers in car assembly – Lito Group from Hadera and Kfar Qara, a group of agricultural workers from Kfar Manda, a WAC youth group, WAC activists and members of management. The winning team included players from Kfar Qara, and Hadera, Arabs and Jews who work together in the Lito Group factory in Or Akiva. Ali Kabha, a Lito Group employee from Umm el Kutuf, voiced a sentiment that symbolizes what everyone felt "We've never been more consolidated than we are today".
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Two members of the Lito Group factory receive the cup | |