Likud MK Eliyahu Ravivo to sue state over lack of foreign worker documentation

Likud MK and Chairman of the Special Committee for Foreign Workers Eliyahu Revivo said last month at a government hearing that he will sue the state over the lack of documentation for foreign workers who come to Israel from abroad.

"For months I have been asking for documentation of the process of sorting out the workers from abroad, and it turns out that there is no such documentation," he said. "Representatives from the Housing and Construction Ministry, the Population Authority, and the Contractors Association have flown to sort workers, but there is no documentation of this."

Revivo noted that he was shocked that there should have been at least photographic documentation of workers. 

"At the very least, an identification booklet is needed so that we can check whether the worker is a fisherman or a builder," he continued. "For a long time, we have understood the plight of the workers and I am trying to set processes in motion. They don't meet deadlines, they don't work with quality."

More importation of foreign workers reportedly needed

The Housing and Construction Ministry's Director-General Yehuda Morgenstern described the process of bringing in workers in recent months and noted the need to import a lot of workers "and quickly." Morgenstern addressed the claims about the quality of the workers and said that "we work through the Contractors Association that sends workmen to the destination country."

"We need to create a procedure and approve it at the foreign affairs and justice ministries, as well as the Population Authority. There is a system of checks and balances between government ministries, in which the ombudsman has considered quite a few factors that will take time to go through," Revivo said.

Contractors and owners of corporations for importing workers in the construction industry voiced serious claims about the selection process of workers, in particular about non-professional workers who came from India, and the amount of fees that the corporations are required to pay even for workers who are not professional and do not have any demand - fees that amount to hundreds of thousands of shekels.

Revivo asked other government representatives at the hearing who can contractors turn to with a claim for damages. "I appeal to everyone who has been harmed to sue the state to claim for damages. I will be a witness to your claim. Start suing, that's the only way they will wake up."

At the end of the discussion, Revivo asked the housing and foreign ministries to examine whether there was an obstacle to transferring workers' documents from abroad to the Special Committee for Foreign Workers.