Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu says building more flats will ultimately cut housing prices
By John Reed in Jerusalem
Israel’s cabinet has backed a plan to import 20,000 construction workers from China to fast-track homebuilding and honour an election pledge to cut housing prices.
Workers’ rights groups attacked Sunday’s proposal, which they said would take away jobs from working-class Israelis and submit Chinese workers to exploitative conditions which amounted to indentured labour.
“As with every step, there are always side costs but the overall considerations vis-à-vis the ability to build many apartments, thereby increasing supply, will, in the end, allow us to change price trends.”
The proposal to import Chinese workers is being championed by Moshe Kahlon, the finance minister, who led a reform of mobile phone charges when formerly in government. Mr Kahlon brought his new centre-right Kulanu party into parliament in March’s election on a promise to reduce living costs for middle-class and poor Israelis.
Finance ministry officials trying to speed the building of new homes say they are battling a crisis in residential housing caused by short supply, high state ownership of land and planning restrictions. Average housing prices have risen nearly 100 per cent in under a decade, ministry officials said.
Israel has been importing thousands of foreign workers — mostly in building, agriculture and nursing — since the second intifada, when the outbreak of violence caused authorities to reduce work permits for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
There are already a few thousand Chinese workers in construction in the country. Israel’s trade turnover with China reached $11bn last year, about double the amount in 2010, and Chinese companies are emerging as leading buyers of Israeli consumer goods, agribusiness and high-tech companies.
Shelly Yachimovich, an MP with the centre-left opposition Zionist Union party, attacked Sunday’s government decision. She said it would push down salaries for poor Israeli workers and allow for the exploitation of Chinese workers in Israel, who, she said, were “held captive by those who traffic them”.
Before the proposal’s announcement on Sunday, Ha’aretz, a left-leaning newspaper, wrote: “Yes, Israel is putting up more towers and yes, they require higher skills but Israelis should be trained rather than the government merely importing Chinese workers.”
Kav LaOved, a non-governmental organisation promoting workers’ rights, said Sunday’s decision broke with Israel’s practice of bringing in guest workers under bilateral agreements. It has such pacts in place with countries including Romania, Moldova and Bulgaria but no such agreement exists with China.
The group has collected testimonies alleging the collection of brokerage fees worth $30,000 per Chinese worker, collected by manpower companies that recruit them. The group says these are tantamount to “bribes”.
Hanny Ben Israel, a lawyer at Kav LaOved, told the Financial Times: “When workers come to Israel after having paid huge sums of money, they work here in a preliminary state of debt.
“This bears directly on their willingness or ability to complain in cases of rights violations.”
Human Rights Watch alleged, in a report published in January, that Thai agriculture workers in Israel faced “serious labour rights abuses”, including low pay, excessive hours, hazardous working conditions and poor housing.
