The Knesset approved on Wednesday 26 June 2024, in a preliminary reading, an amendment to the Foreign Workers Law which, if approved, will deny migrant caregivers their pension rights. The amendment, initiated by MKs Ariel Kellner, Saran Hasakl, Yitzhak Kreuzer and Eliyahu Revivo, was supported by 54 MKs, with 13 voting against and one abstention. It will now be forwarded to a Knesset Committee for discussion and vote.
Instead of taking responsibility for assisting Israeli elders and people with severe disabilities, the state of Israel has, over the years, completely privatized this field. The amendment under discussion is intended to reduce the costs for a private employer of hiring a migrant worker. The justification behind the proposal, frequently voiced in Knesset Committees, is that migrant workers, who come from poor countries, should be grateful for the “high” wages they receive in Israel (i.e. the minimum wage for an extremely demanding and difficult physical work), while Israel’s progressive labor laws should apply to Israelis only.
This cynical bill, if approved, will show how opportunistic Israel is, bringing migrant workers in droves to fill undesirable jobs, that citizens refuse to perform, while at the same time denying (clearly essential) migrant workers their rights and their future. The number of migrant caregivers in Israel is already insufficient to fulfil all the needs. If the bill will be approved, good workers will prefer other options and will certainly not come to work in Israel anymore. Also, their governments will probably also advise against working in Israel. The government of the Philippines has already frozen the bilateral agreement to bring caregivers to Israel because of a last year decision to impose on workers the payment of thousands of shekels to finance Caregivers’ Placement Agencies.
An article published on Times of Israel – here.
