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Israel is going backwards on protecting migrant workers [1]
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Date: 2025-01
Israel’s circular work-migration programmes in the care, agriculture and construction sectors first emerged in the 1990s. A decade later, the Israeli Supreme Court gave substantial decisions regarding their two most problematic aspects.
First, workers were paying illegal broker fees under dubious recruitment processes, which was leading to debt bondage. Second, the binding nature of the visa regime, which tied workers to their employers, was enabling those employers to infringe upon workers’ basic freedoms.
Following these rulings Israel took steps to prevent illegal broker fees in the agricultural and construction sectors. It required migrants in these sectors to come through official, fee-free routes. Israel also made it possible for migrants in all sectors to change employers while in the country for the basic time period of 5 years.
The organisation I work for, Kav La'Oved – Hotline for Workers, observed that these changes had the desired effect: working conditions improved and exploitation went down in these sectors.
Since then the Israeli government has lost much of its enthusiasm for protecting its migrant workforce. Unsupervised recruitment has returned, and with it migrant workers who pay heavy recruitment fees, who chafe against restrictions to their mobility, and who enjoy few options for recourse when things go wrong.
Initial progress for migrant workers
Israel has officially adhered to two main principles since the court criticised its circular migration programmes.
First, Israel seeks to diminish unsupervised recruitment routes and aspires to recruit migrant workers only via supervised governmental mechanisms. These are established under bilateral agreements with countries of origin, and only workers from those countries are allowed to be recruited. These agreements have proven to be successful in preventing illegal broker fees and reducing scams and frauds.
Second, Israel seeks to ensure that migrant workers can, both legally and practically, move between employers. Current regulations give migrant workers the right to change employers within their permitted basic period of work (5 years).
Israel furthermore established some sector-specific assignment agencies to help workers find a new employer if they wish to do so in the agriculture and care sectors. These agencies are forbidden from charging workers fees, and employers in these sectors are forbidden from employing migrants without such agencies acting as intermediaries. In the construction sector, only licensed manpower corporations may employ migrant workers. These companies can only employ migrants and are obligated to pay their salaries regardless of whether the workers are assigned to a construction site or not.
Such steps proved effective in both eliminating recruitment fees and allowing migrant workers to change employers. The effect was improved working conditions and reduced risk of forced labour and trafficking when compared to the Israeli circular migration programmes of the previous decade.
In recent years, however, Israel has regressed on its commitment to safe migration routes and migrant worker mobility. This has happened in three important ways.
The return of unsupervised recruitment
While still officially adhering to the principle of supervised recruitment under bilateral agreements, in practice Israel accepted the development and growth of back-door unsupervised recruitment schemes. This is true even where Israel has successfully signed agreements in the past.
For example, at the same time as an agreement was signed with Thailand for the recruitment of agricultural workers, a spike occurred in the number of women and men entering Israel from various countries under volunteering visas or as part of "agriculture study" programmes. They paid high fees to come, and once in country they became a de facto cheap labour force with little ability (if any) to switch employers.
In the construction sector, Israeli contractors are still required to employ migrants via licensed manpower corporations. But the market has been opened up to foreign construction companies, which can employ migrants by themselves and bring them from their home countries without any supervision. Testimonies from such workers show that many were recruited without supervision and in ways that left them with zero mobility options.
The above programmes produce relatively high numbers of recognised trafficking victims, but the government does little about it. This is likely because they bolster Israel’s international relations profile and attract workers who are ‘willing’ to work more hours.
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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/israel-is-going-backwards-on-protecting-migrant-workers/
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