Following a prolonged struggle and a three-month-long strike during the last summer the Salit quarry was declared bankrupt and placed in the head of the receivers. On 12 December 2011 the Jerusalem District court gave its imprimatur to a creditors’ arrangement for the quarry. The settlement ensured financial compensation to the employees but enabled the construction companies to take over the quarry without any commitment to employ the workers. Notwithstanding the Israeli institutional indifference to the fate of the Palestinian workers, the Salit employees and the Workers Advice Center (WAC-MAAN) succeeded in demonstrating the power of cross-border solidarity. There are some important lessons embedded in this historical and ongoing struggle.
On 12 December the Jerusalem district court approved a creditors’ arrangement for the Salit quarry. Under the terms of the ruling, the 50 employees of the quarry would receive monetary compensation that would be paid to them in stages. There is, however, no guarantee of further employment. This decision came following several months of negotiations concerning the fate of the quarry, which has been on the verge of bankruptcy since last summer. The quarry is located in Occupied West Bank in an Area characterized in the Oslo Agreements as Area C (under the security and civil control of Israel) and is owned by the Caleb family of Jerusalem. This Israeli Jewish owner got a permit to open a quarry in the occupied West Bank, and for three decades it employed Palestinian workers on low wages and without any of the usual social entitlements.
A week later, and apparently unrelated to this ruling, the Knesset Finance Committee approved two proposals regarding enterprises in difficulties in the north of the country. During its 19 December meeting, the committee decided to enact a special-purpose law in order to save the ailing Pri HaGalil fruit-and-vegetable processing plant in Hatzor HaGalilit. The special law would enable the government to grant millions of shekels to the plant, in order to prevent the dismissal of several dozen employees. On the same day, the Finance Committee also appointed Knesset Member Amir Peretz to head a team to seek ways to resolve the crisis at the Selena plant in Nazareth Ilit. The aim of this action is to assist an enterprise that has accumulated a debt of as much as 100 million shekels (NIS)–ca. $27 million–and may well dismiss its 150 employees.
The difference between the cases is strikingly obvious. In the case of the quarry, where 50 Palestinian workers stood to lose their jobs, the Court, the Knesset and the media remained unmoved. But in the case of enterprises in Israel, we witnessed a broad mobilization reminding the authorities of their duty to care for people who may face unemployment. It should be mentioned that even this kind of Knesset decision is seldom implemented, and Israeli workers too get fired and forgotten, but in the case of the Palestinians there was not even a moral commitment to guarantee their jobs.
Jerusalem district judge David Mintz’s decision on Salit set in motion arrangements to pay compensation to employees and other creditors of the quarry. On this level, the massive effort undertaken by WAC-MAAN, which represented the workers throughout the dispute, has yielded fruit. According to the arrangements, priority has been given to paying the total debt to employees, ahead of suppliers and other debtors. The order ensures that those employees who are each entitled to 150,000 NIS will receive that payment in full. The small number who are eligible for a larger amount will receive half of their entitlement above 150,000 NIS.
On the other hand, the authorization given to two major building contractors, Ashtrom and Barazani, to recommence operations in the quarry was not accompanied by explicit instructions to reemploy the existing workforce. This demand was explicitly raised in court by WAC-MAAN (Adv. Ehud Shilony represented the workers in the case.) The fact that the district court has approved the arrangements under these circumstances violates the basic right of workers to remain employed in a place that has become insolvent as a direct result of the incompetence of owners and management.
Inferior legal status
Uncertainty about the possibility of compensation by Israel’s National Insurance Institute (NII) placed the employees in an inferior legal position. In every case in which Israeli workers have been properly insured by the employer, employees can halt the insolvency process from a position of strength. So the employees of the Israeli companies Pri HaGalil and Selena are protected by favorable media and legislators; from a legal point of view there is no doubt as to their entitlement to payment by the NII in the event of bankruptcy. Entitlement in the event of bankruptcy is one of the basic benefits of the National Insurance scheme, and an Israeli worker is entitled to payment up to a ceiling of 130,000 NIS, in the event that his or her employer defaults on the payment of entitlement. Israeli workers are thus always in a position to present the court with a clear choice: either ensure job security under the new arrangements or face opposition from the employees that can lead to the company’s dissolution. In the case of such dissolution, employees would still receive their entitlement from the National Insurance scheme. Israeli workers are thus in a win-win situation.
In the case of Salit quarry the situation was different. The quarry’s management treated its workers as though they were invisible with no rights or status, and consequently failed for years to pay their NII premiums. They cynically used the quarry location, in the Occupied West Bank Area C, to register the quarry as a foreign company, hence not subject to the laws of the State of Israel. This situation created legal uncertainty about the right of workers’ compensation from the NII, in the event that workers’ opposition to a creditors agreement would lead to the company’s dissolution. Hence the basic bargaining position of the workers vis-à-vis the court and the other creditors was weakened. They therefore had to accept a partial settlement that did not contain a commitment to their future. Given the high unemployment rate in the West Bank, and the absence of unemployment benefits, Salit’s former employees and their families will be left in a very difficult situation.
Organized and determined workers
Salit employees entered the dispute as an organized collective, acting throughout in a unified and deliberate fashion. Since 2007, about 45 Salit production workers, all residents of the Palestinian Authority or East Jerusalem, have joined WAC-MAAN. They elected a workers’ committee and fought to obtain a collective agreement. They were aware of the difficulties confronting them and the absence of alternative employment, but they were determined not to accept the miserable conditions and humiliating treatment meted out to them and to organize.
In the spring of 2011 matters came to a head. After eighteen months of the patient negotiations, WAC’s representative, the workers’ committee and Salit’s management came up with the draft of a collective agreement. The employees approved it, but management avoided signing for two months. Time and again meetings were cancelled. The workers understood that unless they presented management with a clear ultimatum, they would expose themselves to ongoing abuse. In consultation with the workers, WAC declared a labor dispute, and on 16 June a general strike was called.
Management’s conduct indicates that it wanted to bring matters to a head. Perhaps management expected that it could have broken the workers’ unity and crushed their determination. But management turned out to be wrong. With the exception of a small group of workers who were employed as drivers outside the quarry, all remained unified in support of the strike. They rejected any suggestion of a return to work without an agreement. During the three-month strike period not a single day passed without an organized system of rumors, or a phone call to a striker, offering him a high return if he only he forsook his comrades.
The dirty tricks failed, as the employees’ stance remained solid. The workers also received a great deal of support from both Israeli public opinion and the international labor movement. The Salit strike, the first of its kind in Area C, won broad support, and thousands of emails were sent in a world-wide public campaign organized by Labourstart to express sympathy. The WAC strike fund was able to raise tens of thousands of shekels, from which each employee received 1850 NIS.
At the end of August the workers learned that the quarry was proclaiming bankruptcy. The workers were well aware that the decline of their employer was not caused by the strike. They knew about the conflicts between the shareholders and management’s failures, which eventually led to collapse. Most enterprises whose workers are on strike find a way to compromise and ensure continued production. The Salit management’s refusal to compromise was the result of a failed management entangled in internal conflicts. In such a situation there was a danger of total demise, which would have left employees without compensation and without any rights. Organized as a collective entity, the workers fought for their rights and dignity. Not only did they thus ensure the payment of entitlements, but they came out of the experience with their heads held high.
WAC-MAAN and the Salit workers demonstrated that even under the complex conditions of occupation and national conflict, it is possible to overcome the obstacles of distance, language and legal situation, and to create a unique partnership of workers who have realized their collective power. The employees understand that WAC-MAAN is a labor organization striving to change the rules of the game. Their courage and determination have inspired us, because a basis has been formed which points to the possibility of organizing workers under adverse circumstances. This precedent will doubtless provide the foundation for future struggles.
Israel Supreme Court approves the pillage of the West Bank Quarries
The Israeli NGO Yesh Din (which defends the legal rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories), contended in a petition filed two years ago that the operations of about 10 Israeli-owned quarries, which have operated for many years in the West Bank contrary to international law, needed to stop. According to Yesh Din, Israeli quarries transfer 94 per cent of the extracted material to Israel. This amounts to exploitation of natural resources, which must not take place in an occupied territory. The High Court ruling of 26 December (HCJ 2164/09) rejected the petition to stop the operation of Israeli quarries in the Occupied West Bank, including Salit. The court stated in part that the quarries provide employment for Palestinians. The treatment of its employees by the Salit quarry over the decades, and now the creditors’ arrangement, show that consideration for the welfare of employees is merely an excuse for making easy profits.
Translation from Hebrew: Sol Salbe
