International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and nine global trade unions, with members in over 160 countries representing 207 million workers, have filed Friday, Sep 27, a complaint against the Israeli government for “blatant violations” of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Protection of Wages Convention. Israel has ratified the ILO convention on the protection of unpaid wages, which is legally binding on signatories.
The complaint was signed by the Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI); Education International (EI); IndustriALL Global Union; International Federation of Journalists (IFJ); International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF); Public Services International (PSI); and UNI Global Union. The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD has also joined the complaint. The Histadrut is member of the ITUC and his chairman, Arnon Bar-David in one of their Vice-Presidents.
British Unite union demonstration in Solidarity with Palestine. Unite is one of the two largest trade unions in the UK, with over 1.2 million members in construction, manufacturing, transport, logistics and other sectors (Photo: Unite)
The complaint highlights the obligation of Israeli authorities to redress and remedy a range of abuses, including unpaid wages and withheld benefits for more than 200,000 Palestinian workers employed in Israel. These abuses have led to millions of dollars of lost income, causing severe financial insecurity, economic distress, deprivation of basic services, and widespread hardship for the affected workers and their families, who have no access to judicial remedies, the ITUC said.
Luc Triangle, General Secretary of the ITUC, said “When I visited the West Bank earlier this year, I witnessed the economic destitution experienced by the families of Palestinian workers employed in Israel. As always, working people are enduring the worst of the continuing conflict. Through this petition, we want to ensure that the much-needed backpay is paid out to workers who are struggling to make ends meet.”
The complaint urging Israel to pay back wages for more than 200,000 Palestinian workers who have gone unpaid or seen their benefits withheld in the year since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. Within hours of the onslaught last year, the Israeli government announced the suspension of work permits for almost all Palestinians who had been commuting daily to work inside Israel, citing “security concerns.”
The complaint, lodged at the ILO cited “millions of dollars of lost income, causing severe financial insecurity… and widespread hardship for the affected workers and their families, who have no access to judicial remedies.” In addition the far-right Israeli governments has withheld a total of around 1.61 billion dollars in tax revenues to the Palestinian Authority, according to an estimate by the Palestinian finance ministry, which is today too cash-strapped to pay tens of thousands public workers’ salaries in full.
