QALANSUWA, ISRAEL // A decision by Israel’s
state-owned railway company to sack 150 Arab workers because they have not
served in the army has been denounced as “unlawful” and “racist” this week by
Arab legal and workers’ rights groups.
The new policy, which applies to guards at train crossing points,
is being implemented even though the country’s Arab citizens – numbering 1.2
million and nearly one-fifth of the total population – have been exempt from
serving in the military since Israel’s establishment.
Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, complained
to Israel Railways and the attorney general last week, arguing that the move was
meant “to cleanse the railways of Arab employees”.
“It is an especially grave matter as this is a public company
whose operations are meant to benefit all citizens,” he said.
The Laborers’ Voice, a workers’ rights group based in Nazareth,
said the new condition of employment was designed to reserve rail jobs for Jews,
most of whom are conscripted for three years after finishing school.
It added that Israel Railways was following dozens of other major
Israeli firms and thousands of small businesses that keep jobs off limits to
Arab workers by defining the roles as security related.
Israel Railways announced last month that all crossing guards
would be required to produce a discharge certificate from the army or face
dismissal. The first 40 Arab workers received their notices last week, taking
effect almost immediately.
Taher Jayousi, 32, from the Arab village of
Qalansuwa in central Israel, where 20 of the fired guards live, said they had
been told their job would now require them to carry a gun and could therefore be
performed only by former soldiers.
One commentator in Haaretz, a liberal daily newspaper, ridiculed
the attempt to characterise the guards’ role as security related. “A dreamed-up
security demand is one of the oldest tricks to reject Arab candidates in job
interviews,” wrote Avirama Golan.
That assessment is shared by Adalah, an Arab legal group, which
has threatened legal action against the transport ministry for violating the
sacked workers’ constitutional rights.
Adalah said it was relying on a ruling
three years ago in which the courts rejected Haifa University’s decision to
reserve student accommodation for those who had served in the army.
The position of crossing guard was created in 2006 to increase
rail safety after five people were killed and more than 80 injured when a train
collided with a stranded car at a crossing point. Nearly two-thirds of the 260
guards are reported to be Arabs.
Such other railway jobs as engineer and station staff are already
reserved for Jewish workers, said Wahbe Badarne, director of the Laborers’
Voice.
Assad Salami, 35, another of the sacked
guards from Qalansuwa, said: “Until now, the company could find few Jews who
wanted to do guard work for the low wages we’re paid.
“But with an economic crisis looming it has the chance to get rid
of us and offer our jobs to Jews.”
In a statement defending the new policy, Israel Railways said it
was intended to provide job opportunities for army veterans, a social benefit
the company described as “significant”.
Another of the former guards, Ibrahim Nasrallah, 25, said: “What
does that say to us if the company is only concerned about reducing the
unemployment rate among the Jewish public?”
He said the use of security as a pretext to avoid hiring Arab
workers was one he and his family were familiar with.
“My brother is a chef and has been unemployed for the past eight
months. Every time he goes to a restaurant and they see he’s an Arab they tell
him they are only hiring workers who have served in the army. It’s crazy – you
need to be a former soldier to cook food in Israel!”
Mr Badarne of the Laborers’ Voice said he has heard similar
stories from other Arab workers.
“Laws against discrimination exist in Israel. The problem is that
there appears to be no interest in enforcing them.
“If I go to the shopping mall, even the notices in the windows
asking for sales assistants require army service from applicants.
“At least in these cases we can prove that it is racism we are
dealing with.
“More sinister, however, is the more recent practice of employers
telling Arab applicants that a position is already filled to avoid the threat of
legal action. There the racism is veiled.”
Large sections of the economy are officially off limits to Arab
workers because they fall within what Israel defines as its security industries,
especially weapons manufacturers, the airports and national airline, ports and
refineries, and the various security agencies.
But he said many large state-owned corporations that are not
involved in security fields were also reluctant to employ Arabs, sending a
message to smaller firms that discrimination was legitimate.
According to figures provided in 2004 by Nachman Tal, a former
deputy head of the Shin Bet, the domestic security service, only six of the
13,000 employees of the Israeli Electricity Corp were Arabs.
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s former prime
minister, admitted racial discrimination was rife in a speech to the parliament
in December. “It is terrible that there is not even one Arab employee [out of
900] at the Bank of Israel.”
Of the civil service, he added: “There is no arguing that some
government ministries did not hire Arabs for years.”
Government statistics show that 12.5 per cent of all Arab college
graduates are unemployed, nearly four times the figure for Jewish graduates.
Even those who do work are often forced into low-paying and
menial jobs, Mr Badarne said.
Mr Salami, who trained as a schoolteacher, said that, among the
20 guards from his village, four were lawyers.
Mr Badarne pointed out that the long-standing Zionist principle
of “Hebrew labour”, or Jews employing only other Jews, still had great influence
in Israeli society.
He was especially critical of the country’s trade union
federation, the Histadrut, which has traditionally also been one of the
country’s largest employers.
It did not allow any admission of Arab workers until a decade
after Israel’s creation and even then it set up a separate, and marginal, Arab
section within the organisation, he said.
“Unusually for a trade union, poor workers, and that means,
overwhelmingly, Arab workers, are simply not on the Histadrut’s agenda. It is
there to protect the jobs and good salaries of workers in the large state
corporations and government offices.”
He added that his organisation, which offers Arab workers support
services and legal advice, was currently seeking redress for many Arab workers
who had been sacked after attending demonstrations in January against the
Israeli army’s attack on Palestinians in Gaza.
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