Well, unions would make sense if Israel weren't an apartheid state. The
workers from the occupied territories have no rights at all. The
Palestinians who are Israeli citizens do not have the same lawful rights as
Jewish Israeli citizens. So unions aren't going to solve the problems
except, perhaps, for Jewish immigrant workers.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2015 8:49 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Construction deaths of Palestinians in, Israel
show need to organize unions
http://themilitant.com/2016/8001/800155.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 1 January 4, 2016
Construction deaths of Palestinians in
Israel show need to organize unions
BY SETH GALINSKY
In November five construction workers fell to their deaths in a single week
in Israel. Over the last five years, official government records report 184
have died in falls. The overwhelming majority are Arab citizens of Israel,
Arabs from the West Bank or immigrant workers, mostly from China, Russia,
eastern Europe or Eritrea.
The dangers that construction workers face in Israel and the United States
are "strikingly similar, only with local variants, Palestinians instead of
Latinos," Hadas Tagari told the Militant Dec. 18 by phone from Hod Hasharon.
In September 2014 the government increased the quota for Palestinian
construction workers from the West Bank by 5,000.
Roughly 30 construction workers die on the job every year and some 6,000 are
injured. There are only 17 government safety inspectors for 12,000
construction sites, according to a recent report by the Knesset, Israel's
parliament.
"I got up on the morning of Nov. 10 and saw that the previous day three
construction workers were killed," Tagari said. She formed the Coalition for
Fighting Construction Accidents, which includes Kav LaOved (Workers'
Hotline), the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Physicians for Human
Rights and the Workers Advice Center.
The Histadrut, the largest union federation in the country, has contracts
with some big construction companies, but most work is contracted out and 75
percent or more of those workers are unorganized.
The bosses intimidate undocumented workers and keep them from speaking out
about dangerous work conditions or forming a union, Shay Cohen, an
organization secretary of Koach La Ovdim (Workers Power), the second largest
union federation in Israel, said by phone from Givatayim.
"Only unionization can solve the problem in the long term," he said.
"We've had some success organizing crane operators who are mostly Russian
immigrants and Arab citizens of Israel. But that is just the very beginning
of what is needed."
Deaths on the job are rarely reported in the press and usually without the
names of the workers who die, Tagari said.
"In recent decades not one contractor has ever paid for a worker's death
with prison time," Haaretz reported.
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On the Picket Line
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