The petition was filed by Kav LaOved, the Labor Rights Clinic at Tel Aviv University, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and MAAN. It was submitted out of concern that the government’s Committee that consists of General Directors of several ministries would fundamentally change the Israeli labor market, push out low-wage workers, affect wage levels across the economy, slow technological development, and lead to human trafficking. Additionally, the petition warns of the far-reaching implications of the massive entry of workers from foreign countries, would curtail the possibility of Palestinian workers to reintegrate into the Israeli labor market, with all that implies for the Palestinian economy and contrary to the recommendations of security agencies and the Bank of Israel.
The petition addresses the change in the way decisions are made regarding the arrival and employment of migrant workers in Israel. Instead of the discussion and approval processes by the government that were customary for decades, the recently authorized Committee of General Directors can approve the arrival of tens of thousands of workers without requiring these decisions to go through governmental or public scrutiny. The Committee which received extensive powers, includes eight members—all high-ranking government officials, headed by the Director-General of the Prime Minister’s Office, Yossi Shelly. Unlike committees that are supposed to recommend to the government, this Committee was given the authority to make decisions that are immediately binding without the need to involve the public. The committee operates in secret, its discussions are not published, and it does not share or consult with representatives of workers and employers.
This is particularly troubling as the committee’s decisions can change policies. Among them: setting quotas for foreign workers; opening new sectors for foreign worker importation (indeed, since its establishment two months ago, the number of sectors it opened for labor migration has nearly doubled compared to the previous 30 years); determining the manner of recruiting workers, and allowing unregulated recruitment without bilateral agreements that were previously mandatory; setting a minimum wage lower than the legal minimum for migrant workers, and extending its powers to include Palestinian workers.
It is worth noting that in mid-June, representatives of Kav LaOved, MAAN, and Adva were invited to a meeting with the Committee of Directors-General. However, the short meeting (only 30 minutes were allocated for the three organizations’ representatives to present their position) gave the impression that the committee was not genuinely interested in discussing the issue but merely intended to create the appearance of a public hearing. Since the meeting, the organizations have witnessed complete disregard for the concerns raised in the meeting and letters on the subject.
