As Hammer explicated, Israel, "as a formerly Socialist country and very anxious for international acknowledgment since its foundation", were signing a number of international agreements on fundamental human rights as well as the ILO convention. These offer a number of relevant connections to the legal claims of migrant workers – as, for example, the ban on discrimination of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which were also implying fair wages and working conditions – provided that they are put into codified national law. Furthermore there were progressive first signs on the level of the national labor legislation and administering of justice, like the ban on forced labor, the ""Equal Opportunity"" law (that actually affects only the equal opportunities of Arab Israelis), the freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining, legal minimum wages and vacation entitlements, as well as the right to health care, which, "in principle", were granted to migrants as well. Most of this with the qualification that the workers were staying legally in the country and continue to do so.
Therefore it was not sufficient to eliminate the shortcomings as regards the interpretative realization of international human rights and labor legislation agreements in codified national law, its implementation, too, was to be advanced regardless of the residence permit status. Although this task was certainly requiring that the unions don’t see themselves as victims of globalization and back away into protectionist regulations, but seize the chance of internationalizing human rights. Beyond this rather long-term perspective his conclusion concerning existing legal conditions was clear and brief: both, the premiums the governments receive from the personnel agencies and the fees they are charging the workers as well as the discrimination of foreign workers in Israel breach the ILO convention and Israeli law.
But who is to call upon these rights, when this requires a valid visa or residence permit, when workers may be fired and lose their permits, or when workers without permits expose themselves to possible sanctions by authorities, Hammer’s colleagues Ahuva Zaltzberg and Dror Meir of the Israeli Bar Foundation asked. They also pointed out that a number of these rights, like the right to health care in accidents at work so far had been granted regardless of residence permit status, but since 2003 the government were successively abolishing such social security benefits.
Not a legal progress, but rather a step backwards was to be noted. And a crucial convention that would grant employment and safety rights regardless of residence permit status, Israel – like Germany – hasn’t ratified so far: the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
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