BILATERAL AGREEMENTS, PRECARIOUS WORK, AND THE VULNERABILITY OF MIGRANT WORKERS IN ISRAEL (original) (raw)
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European Management Review, 2019
To determine the impact of evolving forms of governance on migrant workers' rights and employment conditions in Israel we first probe the extensive private recruitment industry that developed in Israel before the implementation of bilateral agreements, and examine migrant workers' employment conditions and wages. Next we show the importance of bilateral agreements for the annulment of illicit practices in labor recruitment, as well as the practical consequences for migrants under the new arrangement. Specifically we scrutinize the impact of implementation of bilateral agreements in the construction sector on recruitment practices and fees, wage levels, and work conditions. Implementation of bilateral agreement were accompanied by dramatic decrease in the sums paid by migrant workers to reach the host country – but did not significantly improve workers' rights, and their wages even declined. The mechanisms whereby a pool of precarious workers has emerged in the local labor market in Israel are highlighted. Full text is available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/FSXD892I8NDHS96IJWAE?target=10.1111/emre.12169
The article explores the variety of matters that bilateral labor agreements (BLAs) could and should regulate for the protection of migrant workers, and then asks what led Israel, in the BLAs that it signed with source countries of migrant workers, to put such emphasis on protecting migrants during their recruitment (and especially to unsure non-payment of excessive recruitment fees) yet show so little concern in protecting them while in Israel and on their way back home. Three distinct theses are presented as possible explanations to this ostensible discrepancy: the care thesis (Israeli civil servants sincerely cared for the special hardships that recruitment fees inflicted on migrant workers on their way to Israel); the pressure thesis (the American State Department and the Israeli Supreme Court compelled Israel to address recruitment fees via BLAs), and the control thesis (Israeli Ministry of Interior realized that excessive recruitment fee payments curtail its power over migrant workers – as Courts are reluctant to confirm deportation of migrants who did not cover the cost of the recruitment fees that they paid – hence acted to eliminate such payments). Based on these three theses, the article also explores what could potentially motivate Israel to expand its future BLAs, in a way that they would not only protect migrants on their way to Israel, but also while they are in the country and on their way back home.
In this paper we consider the impact of migrant workers on the Israeli wage structure, on the chances of being unemployed or out of the labor force and on inequality in gross earnings from work. One of the manifestations of globalization is the movement of migrant workers from low-income to richer countries. The recent increase in living standards in Israel has created significant wage differentials for workers from low-income countries. Paradoxically, an important trigger for this process was also the worsening of Israel’s security situation in 1993, following the Oslo accord between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel responded to the deterioration by closures, which sharply reduced the number of Palestinian workers in Israel, substituting them with migrant workers, mainly from Eastern Europe, South and Central America and the Far East.
Migrant workers from the perspective of the Israeli welfare state
Center for Open Access in Science (The 4th International online Conference on Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences), 2020
The phenomenon of work migration and of the entry of foreign workers into the local labor market is explained as a part of the development of a global capitalist economy that creates inequality between countries with surplus capital and countries with surplus working hands. It is also possible to see this as a gap between core countries and peripheral countries and the relationships of the dependence of the latter on the former. Another possible way to examine this is through the mechanisms of social and economic welfare that exist in these countries that absorb migrant workers and that create a comfortable social infrastructure for the absorption of migrant workers and family members who are interested in ensuring for themselves a better future. In the peripheral countries, there are excess labor forces, which in practice are used to fill gaps in manpower in the economies of the core countries. Lacking sources of income, whether due to shortages or war, many residents of peripheral countries are forced to migrate to developed countries, the majority of which have, to some degree or another, mechanisms of a welfare state and which have developed the demand for unskilled workers who do not hesitate to take on any job. While the Palestinian workers worked in the areas of Israel on a daily basis and returned to their place of residence, the massive absorption of the migrant workers from distant countries led to the formation of foreign communities in the large cities and the agricultural communities in Israel. The steadily increasing process of the friction between the citizens of the state and the migrant workers, alongside the steadily increasing competition for work places, increased the social disputes between the low classes and the migrant workers. The process of the reduction of the number of migrant workers was only partially successful following the continual infiltration of illegal foreign workers and the entry of asylum seekers from Africa. From the moment that the government made the decision to deport migrant workers, the rights of migrant workers worsened. The maltreatment of the migrant workers by their employers worsened because of the workers’ constant fear of deportation. Simultaneously, the migrant workers found themselves suddenly stranded in a foreign country without any possibility of approaching the government authorities in cases of the violation of their basic rights.
Labor migration to Israel Report 2016
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Underlying Conditions: The Increased Vulnerability of Migrant Workers Under COVID-19 in Israel
Journal of Modern Slavery, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic, and with it the introduction of closures, quarantines and social distancing regulations by governments, has had an immense impact on labour markets and working conditions around the world. In various countries, governments have attempted to mediate the harsh economic results of closures through providing direct benefits or by supporting employers to retain workers. However, such policies have generally not been extended to noncitizens, who, as a result, have found themselves either without income or working long hours in sectors designated 'essential', such as care, agriculture, and construction, often under new restrictions and in the face of health risks. This article considers the impact of key policies introduced in response to the spread of COVID-19 on migrant workers' vulnerability through a specific case study: temporary migrant workers and other 'unskilled' non-citizen workers in the Israeli labour market. We explore the link between restrictive policies and measures resulting from COVID-19 and the increased risk of severe forms of labour market exploitation, in some cases amounting to forced labour, slavery and trafficking in persons. We argue that the impact of COVID-19 restrictions in the Israeli context has generally manifested not in the emergence of new forms of exploitation and coercion, but rather in the exacerbation and intensification of 'underlying conditions' that were already present, i.e., existing structural vulnerabilities to severe forms of labour market This research was conducted with the support of the TraffLab research project (www.trafflab.org) and funded by 1 the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 756672). We thank Lilla Atar for her insights and research assistance and participants of the Private Law Theory Workshop at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law for their comments on an earlier version of the text.