In the Israeli industrial zone of "Alei Zahav" near Salfit in the West bank 150 Palestinian workers in seven factories are waging a battle over employment documents, especially pay slips.

Without Employment Documentation

In one of the area’s timber factories 12 workers suffer bad working conditions: they work in a shed where with bare earth for a floor and an asbestos roof. Their daily wage is 70 shekels for 10 hours' work. They work without pay slips and without work hour registration cards. Their only provable link to their work place is their work permit.

These workers do not receive any of the legally required benefits, such as annual leave, sick days, vacation allowance or overtime pay. Likewise they do not get any protection or safety measures, despite being exposed constantly to work accidents particularly due to nails lying all over the factory floor without anyone being concerned. And the hardest thing is that their direct employer is an Israeli contractor, and they fear getting fired any time they demand improvement in their work conditions.

During meetings with these workers Kav LaOved realized that these workers need to be aware of their rights, need aid in defining their demands and require legal aid in solving their problems.

The workers in the "Alei Zahav" industrial zone talk about changing in their situation. Most of them are aware that the main conditions for success are collective action, patience with those that do not agree and express complaints and fears, convincing co-workers about the outcomes of prospective changes, accepting the principle of communication and negotiation, enlisting the media on their behalf and maintaining a constant link between the workers and the organizations helping them, such as the Palestinian Trade Unions and Kav LaOved.


Consciousness and Fear

The workers in the “Alei Zahav” area factories, due to the awareness developing amongst them, are assertively and persistently demanding that their employers provide them with employment documentation. The most important demand is to get correct official pay slips in order to safeguard their rights. Likewise they are demanding to improve the professional health and safety conditions, and to get the minimum wage.

The workers have taken the initiative to keep every piece of paper they receive from the employer, and especially to photocopy their salary check. They keep an attendance card and write down their daily work hours. This has influenced some of the factory owners, who think twice about their actions, faced by knowledgeable workers who are aware of what is going on around them.

But despite the first signs of change in the workers' awareness, there are still a lot of obstacles to overcome. The main obstacle is fear of losing one's job without finding another one. The signs of fear include exaggerated compliance with present the harsh situation, lack of workers' unity and solidarity, weak or non-existent workers' committees, lack of experience for negotiating with the employer, lack of hope in the prospect of gaining anything, muddled priorities and paralysis as a result of bad past experience.

One of the workers from a factory in "Alei Zahav" expressed his adamant belief that it is possible to create a change through determination, like water eroding a rock; not through violence but through perseverance.


The "Shabak" (General Security Services) intervenes

A black car belonging to the "Shabak" regularly visits the industrial zone of "Alei Zahav". Its passengers ask to meet some of the workers in the nearby Shabak offices. Here the Shabak personnel try to force the workers to cooperate with the Israeli security apparatus by threatening to cancel their work permits should the workers refuse to cooperate, the guiding principle supposedly being "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours".

Most of the workers are afraid of the Shabak and refuse to cooperate with them, and many lose their work permits as a result of these "interviews" and meetings.

Lately the Shabak officers from the Qalqilya area have been persistently exerting pressure on one of the workers in the "Alei Zahav" industrial zone. When the worker refused to cooperate, they threatened to revoke his work permit. Thus, when the work permit expired and had to be renewed, the worker was rejected by the Security Services and became unemployed. Each time the worker returned to the Israeli Civil Administration offices in order to request a work permit, they referred him to the Shabak offices. This man lost his ability to support his family.

This worker is one of hundreds of Palestinian workers who do not get a work permit in the settlements due to what is obscurely termed "security reasons".