Israel’s circular work-migration programmes in the care, agriculture and construction sectors first emerged in the 1990s. A decade later, the Israeli Supreme Court gave substantial decisions regarding their two most problematic aspects.
First, workers were paying illegal broker fees under dubious recruitment processes, which was leading to debt bondage. Second, the binding nature of the visa regime, which tied workers to their employers, was enabling those employers to infringe upon workers’ basic freedoms.
Following these rulings Israel took steps to prevent illegal broker fees in the agricultural and construction sectors. It required migrants in these sectors to come through official, fee-free routes. Israel also made it possible for migrants in all sectors to change employers while in the country for the basic time period of 5 years.
The organisation I work for, Kav La'Oved – Hotline for Workers, observed that these changes had the desired effect: working conditions improved and exploitation went down in these sectors.
Since then the Israeli government has lost much of its enthusiasm for protecting its migrant workforce. Unsupervised recruitment has returned, and with it migrant workers who pay heavy recruitment fees, who chafe against restrictions to their mobility, and who enjoy few options for recourse when things go wrong.
Initial progress for migrant workers
Israel has officially adhered to two main principles since the court criticised its circular migration programmes.
First, Israel seeks to diminish unsupervised recruitment routes and aspires to recruit migrant workers only via supervised governmental mechanisms. These are established under bilateral agreements with countries of origin, and only workers from those countries are allowed to be recruited. These agreements have proven to be successful in preventing illegal broker fees and reducing scams and frauds.
Second, Israel seeks to ensure that migrant workers can, both legally and practically, move between employers. Current regulations give migrant workers the right to change employers within their permitted basic period of work (5 years).
Israel furthermore established some sector-specific assignment agencies to help workers find a new employer if they wish to do so in the agriculture and care sectors. These agencies are forbidden from charging workers fees, and employers in these sectors are forbidden from employing migrants without such agencies acting as intermediaries. In the construction sector, only licensed manpower corporations may employ migrant workers. These companies can only employ migrants and are obligated to pay their salaries regardless of whether the workers are assigned to a construction site or not.
Such steps proved effective in both eliminating recruitment fees and allowing migrant workers to change employers. The effect was improved working conditions and reduced risk of forced labour and trafficking when compared to the Israeli circular migration programmes of the previous decade.
In recent years, however, Israel has regressed on its commitment to safe migration routes and migrant worker mobility. This has happened in three important ways.
The return of unsupervised recruitment
While still officially adhering to the principle of supervised recruitment under bilateral agreements, in practice Israel accepted the development and growth of back-door unsupervised recruitment schemes. This is true even where Israel has successfully signed agreements in the past.
For example, at the same time as an agreement was signed with Thailand for the recruitment of agricultural workers, a spike occurred in the number of women and men entering Israel from various countries under volunteering visas or as part of "agriculture study" programmes. They paid high fees to come, and once in country they became a de facto cheap labour force with little ability (if any) to switch employers.
In the construction sector, Israeli contractors are still required to employ migrants via licensed manpower corporations. But the market has been opened up to foreign construction companies, which can employ migrants by themselves and bring them from their home countries without any supervision. Testimonies from such workers show that many were recruited without supervision and in ways that left them with zero mobility options.
The above programmes produce relatively high numbers of recognised trafficking victims, but the government does little about it. This is likely because they bolster Israel’s international relations profile and attract workers who are ‘willing’ to work more hours.
In the care sector, placement agencies are de-facto financed by the illegal broker fees that workers pay as part of their unsupervised and unregulated recruitment
The situation has worsened since Israel’s decision to ban tens of thousands of Palestinian workers following Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023. This created an acute labour shortage, and Israel has become more lax about how it receives migrant labour in order to mitigate the effects of that decision. Thousands of workers have arrived so far under unsupervised recruitment routes, mostly from the south of India. Testimonies show that large recruitment fees are being levied and that workers are heavily dependent upon Indian recruitment agencies for their mobility, as most of these workers do not speak Hebrew, English or Hindi.
As for the care sector, which hosts the largest number of work migrants (most of them women), Israel failed to regulate its recruitment routes in the first place. The urgent demands of Israel’s ageing population, the complexity of domestic care work, and the prior existence of a large network of private placement agencies effectively prevented the creation of bilateral agreements for care workers. Almost all workers in the sector still pay high recruitment fees somewhere along the line as a result. The highest we’ve heard from the testimonies we’ve gathered was $25,000.
The return of restricted mobility
Despite recognising workers’ right to mobility, Israel has gradually re-imposed limitations on the ability of care and construction workers to register with a new employer. It has done this, for example, by limiting workers to employers in specific geographical areas, or limiting their registration with new employers to specific times of year. Limitations on changing employers were also imposed on workers who have exceeded their initial, five-year term.
The free-market based mechanisms established to assist migrants in locating a new employer have also proven to be insufficient.
In the care sector, for-profit placement agencies are forbidden to charge the workers, yet they are de-facto financed by the illegal broker fees that workers pay as part of their unsupervised and unregulated recruitment, as mentioned above. It is doubtful whether such agencies could continue to exist or operate without these fees.
In the agriculture sector, where a bilateral agreement was signed with Thailand, the number of such agencies dropped drastically due to the cut of the illegal broker fees. However, those that remain in the sector are more concerned with caring for their main clients – the employers – than for Thai-speaking workers. As a result, mobility in the agriculture sector is very low, and the sector is characterised by widespread violations.
In the construction sector, where the manpower corporations model allowed mobility between contractors, mobility between the manpower corporations themselves is allowed but was left unresolved. The void was quickly filled by senior workers who operate de-facto as brokers between companies, or by the Israeli contractors who transfer workers between corporations, sometimes even without their knowledge.
The continued exclusion of Palestinians
None of the above-mentioned principles was ever applied to more than 100,000 Palestinian workers who, until 7 October 2023, entered Israel daily to legally work in many sectors. This employment regime was developed in the 1970s following the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The recruitment of these workers never became supervised and no mechanism was established to assist them changing an employer, a combination which resulted in about a third to a half of these workers paying dearly for their entry permits each month – to Palestinian brokers and Israeli employers alike. The government's obligation to prevent that was put on hold due to the ban – though will return if it is lifted.
Going backwards
Circular migration programmes create the opportunity of a constant cash flow for brokers, and a perpetual vulnerable labour force for employers. The Israeli Supreme Court's rulings and the government’s subsequent commitment to a protective regulatory regime gave rise to hopes that this might change.
However, it seems that the growing need for workers and the liberalisation of the Israeli economy have overpowered protection concerns and emptied well-intentioned measures of most of their substance. Instead of preventing vulnerability, Israel is evermore turning to a model of retroactive prosecution following workers' complaints – which are unlikely to come.
As a model it’s an empty promise. Few indebted workers will risk filing a complaint, and the state has limited desire to go after employers. Israel is going backwards on migrant workers’ rights. If it continues, there’s a good chance its circular migration programmes are going to end up back in court.
Explore the rest of the series
This series looks at how seasonal worker visas, which usually tie workers to their employers, are putting migrant workers around the world at risk of exploitation.
- Seasonal worker visas are tying migrants into exploitation
Caroline Robinson, Worker Support Centre - Exploitation embedded in Spain’s seasonal worker programme
Yoan Molinero-Gerbeau, Comillas Pontifical University - Migrant workers demand justice after abuse, exploitation in Canada
Amanda Aziz, Migrant Workers Centre - Seasonal worker visa puts migrants at risk on UK farms
Valeria Ragni, Worker Support Centre - Non-citizen workers still exploited in Israel, despite court ruling
Maayan Niezna, University of Liverpool - Israel is going backwards on protecting migrant workers
Aelad Cahana, Kav La'Oved - Did Brexit unleash new suffering on UK farms?
Margarita Permonaite, Worker Support Centre - Why I quit being a migrant farm worker in the UK
Jean-Pierre du Toit, seasonal migrant worker - The wage slaves of the Kafala system
Vani Saraswathi, migrant-rights.org
