Israeli Employers Abuse Palestinian Workers

by Mohammed Mar’i

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.

Meanwhile, the Shahak Committee, appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to oversee the implementation of the interim Winograd report’s conclusions, has recommended sweeping changes be made in the Prime Minister’s Office, a report said yesterday.

According to the report of Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, the head of the National Security Council would become a more prominent presence in the PMO, briefing the prime minister daily on diplomatic and security matters. In addition, national security and national crisis centers would be set up in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Furthermore, the Shahak Committee recommended that the prime minister’s military secretary be an officer ranked lower than colonel. The committee, headed by former chief of staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak, submitted its report to the Olmert’s Office last week, and its proposals will be discussed by a special ministerial team this week.