The Americans pressed, and the government backed off from bringing in foreign workers through staffing companies

Peloni:  The US is blocking Israel’s attempt to use foreign workers in place of the Pals from J&S.

The US sent a strong message to Israel to avoid the process of recruiting foreign workers through private companies, for fear of their exploitation. As a result, the Ministry of Justice deleted this course from the plan that will be presented to the government on Sunday. The construction industry can only be saved with Palestinian workers, but Netanyahu fears the fall of his government.

Amitai Gazit, Calcalist  01.02.24

The construction industry is deeply mired in the mud resulting from a lack of workers following the absence of the Palestinian workers . The effort to recruit replacements for them through private personnel companies from foreign countries has so far progressed lazily. But now it seems that the tough conditions that the Ministry of Justice set for the plan to expand this policy will lead to its cancellation or at least a reduction. “Calcalist” has learned that one of the reasons for the demands of the Ministry of Justice is criticism from the American government, which is concerned that the process of hiring foreign workers will lead to their exploitation. As a result, the private route for hiring foreign workers was dropped from the government’s plan to accelerate real estate, which is supposed to go up for government approval this Sunday.

Faced with these difficulties, the quick and available solution for the construction industry is not far from here in the Palestinian Authority, but opening the border crossings for the entry of Palestinian workers may lead to the fall of the government.

The American government is concerned about Israel’s effort to bring in foreign workers recruited by private companies to the construction and agricultural sectors. The Americans are worried that this policy will lead to the exploitation of workers to the point of trafficking them, and that Israel is not prepared to combat this phenomenon. These concerns were expressed in an official letter sent by the Unit for Monitoring and Combating Human Trafficking in the US State Department to the corresponding unit in Israel belonging to the Ministry of Justice. Along with the letter, there was also a Zoom discussion with Cindy Dyer, a senior official in the State Department, who is the head of the unit, and for two hours difficult questions were presented to Israel. At the same time, the Americans canceled a planned visit by the Israelis.

These steps show that Israel has little chance of improving its ranking in the follow-up reports of the American State Department on the struggle of countries in the world against the phenomenon of human trafficking. There is even a fear that Israel will deteriorate in the ranking to a status that could lead to sanctions against it. Israel is in the second ranking group out of three, Alongside it are countries such as Mexico, India and Brazil, but also New Zealand, Italy and Norway. According to the Americans, Israel does not meet the minimum standards necessary to combat human trafficking, but demonstrates a significant effort in trying to meet this standard.

“Employees were exploited and no investigation was opened”
Human trafficking in the labor market is the result of private entities that mediate between employers and employees, and charge them thousands of dollars in fees. In many cases the employee is required to repay the debt for many months and even years, so that all or most of his salary is pledged to the debtor. In such a situation he finds it difficult to stand up for his rights.

The main problem pointed out by the Americans is that Israel neither monitors nor investigates suspicions of exploitation and abuse of workers. It leaves this arena to associations and does not take the initiative to prevent crimes. Despite the fact that associations have pointed out cases of exploitation of workers, for example Chinese citizens who work in the building, so far no investigation has been opened and no one has been prosecuted for it.

The diplomatic criticism of the Americans cuts another layer of the policy that the Israeli government has been trying to promote since the outbreak of the war in the field of foreign workers. Since the construction industry is in a sharp slowdown due to a lack of workers, it seems that there are not many choices left and the government will soon have to make difficult decisions regarding the entry of Palestinian workers from Judea and Samaria.

On the eve of the war, about 80,000 Palestinians with visas, several thousand illegal infiltrators, almost 30,000 foreigners, and 14,000 Israeli Arabs worked in Israel in the construction industry in the hard skeleton jobs. On October 7, the entry of workers from the territories was prohibited, and this policy has not changed until now. In order to fill the gap, the housing and finance ministries are formulating measures to bring in workers from foreign countries. The best way to do this is through a bilateral agreement between the government of Israel and the governments of other countries. Such a system of agreements prevents the mediation of people by private companies, because a government body is the one that provides Israel with the list of employees. However, with the outbreak of the war, an emergency situation arose and the government looked for ways to bring in workers quickly and skip the lengthy negotiations with governments. A month after the outbreak of the war, the government decided to increase the quota of foreign workers from 30 to 50 thousand, with half (10,000) of the additional amount coming through a private route and the rest through a government route. However, so far no additional workers have arrived, either through the government route or through the fast track.

The ministries of finance and housing are currently formulating a plan to speed up the real estate market, a draft of which included, among other things, a two-fold and possibly even three-fold increase in the number of workers that can be brought in through the private route. The sting from this route. And at this point this section was deleted from the program.

First, the Ministry of Justice requests that the quota for the private track be increased only after the first quota – which has not yet been used – is fully or mostly used. Second, they demand that there be a thorough attempt for six months to bring in more workers from countries that sign bilateral agreements or from countries with which new agreements will be signed. The third condition, which is intended to reduce the harm to workers who will come through the private route, is the establishment of a team of CEOs from the government ministries relevant to the issue and representatives of the Legal Adviser to the Government to supervise and examine dealing with the exploitation of workers. In addition, they request a significant increase in the resources of the supervisory bodies, including the state attorney’s office, the police, and office inspectors the job.

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