Foreign workers out
Government plan aims to end employment of foreign laborers by 2014
Very quietly, without any leaks (until this one,) government ministries are preparing a series of steps aimed at minimizing - to the point of almost complete elimination - the employment of foreign workers in Israel.
The background report submitted to the committee in charge of the move reviewed the current situation: A total of 190,000 foreign workers are employed in Israel today; about half of them are employed with permits while the other half is illegal. In addition, another 50,000 Palestinians find odd jobs in Israel; only 10,000 of them arrive here with work permits. Others make it through the breached border.
Recently, another group of foreign workers joined the Israeli job market: 5,000 Sudanese refugees who infiltrated via Egypt. Their working conditions are particularly mediocre.
So where are those foreigners employed? A total of 55,000 are in the construction business, 50,000 are in the nursing sector, and about 30,000 are in the agricultural sector. There is no information about another 50,000. The employment terms of workers without permits are harsh and humiliating: They earn about $2.5 per hour ($2 in the agricultural sector, $3 in the construction industry) and lack any social benefits or professional protection, while being pursued by the police.
However, foreign workers are not the only victims of exploitation – their Israeli counterparts also pay the price. Foreign immigrants push out uneducated Israeli workers and lead to “minimized employment opportunities and declining salaries for Israelis with similar skills,” according to the background report.
Foreign workers comprise about a quarter of all workers in the construction industry, 40 percent of workers in the agricultural sector, and much more than half in the nursing sector. All these figures are unusually high compared to other countries.
‘Import Chinese products, not laborers’
The new plan for minimizing the employment of foreign workers aims to reach an ambitious target: Zero, or almost zero, foreign workers (both with and without permits) by 2014. In order to reach the target, the committee recommends that the following steps be adopted:
- A government authority in charge of implementing the plan would be established.
- Each foreign worker will be granted an ID card that would ensure his rights. The workers will get a bank account and salaries would be deposited directly, so they can become a recognized expense by the employer. No more cash payments.
- An employer would not be able to deduct his expenses on foreign workers without a permit. Today an absurd situation prevails: Those who hire workers without a permit violate the law, but the Income Tax Authority treats them as if they obeyed the law.
- “Modern” border crossings would be established for Palestinian laborers from the territories. The government would force their employers to pay them at least $12 dollars an hour.
What are the chances of approving and executing the plan? Senior government officials are not overly optimistic. If the past is an indication for what’s in store, not much will happen. The widely publicized campaign to expel foreign workers, which was accompanied by despicable phenomena of manhunts on our streets, started with a bang in 2002 and ended with a whimper in the winter of 2004. There was no revolution here: The number of foreign and Palestinian workers dropped from 300,000 to 240,000. They still comprise more than 11 percent of the total number of employees in the business sector.
Had the decline in the number of foreign workers not declined, Israeli employment figures would improve faster and the salary of unskilled workers would rise faster. A senior economist explained that “foreign workers hurt weak population groups and make the strong ones wealthier. Employers save on salary and social benefits, while the unemployed find it difficult to secure decent jobs with a fair salary. It’s better for us to import Chinese products rather than Chinese laborers.”
So the plan is ready and supported by the professionals. Yet one obstacle still hinders its implementation: the powerful lobbies of interest groups that were able to thwart all previous plans, which were no less grandiose, to bring down the number of foreign workers.
