Hundreds of activists and custodial workers took part in the May Day march at Tel-Aviv University (TAU) on Thursday, April 30, which was organized by the student union and the workers’ union Koach LaOvdim (Power to the Workers). The march and rally were held to urge TAU to hire its cleaning staff directly, instead of through personnel contractors. Twenty-five students replaced the campus cleaners for an hour and a half to enable the workers to participate in the march.

A leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint List) during the May Day rally held to urge Tel-Aviv University to hire its cleaning workers directly, rather than by means of personnel contractors (Photo: Al Ittihad)

Uri Ansenberg, a Koach LaOvdim activist and an M.A. student, was one of those who replaced the cleaners during the march. Ansenberg volunteered to clean the toilets and although he did this only for a short time, he later commented that, even for that time, it wasn’t easy to be “invisible.” “The building superintendent was nice, but I don’t think I’d be able to handle this every day,” said Ansenberg, who is studying philosophy. “One hour is enough to understand how hard the work is, when there’s a boss over you who says you’re not doing it quickly enough and how you must work faster, and people pass by and don’t look you in the eye. And for all this you’re paid sometimes less than 4,000 shekels a month. “The university doesn’t have the basic understanding that the status of these workers should be equal to [the status of] the rest of the campus workers,” he said.

Malka Butbul of Ramle, one of the cleaners’ union leaders, was a speaker at the event, alongside a leading member of the Communist Party of Israel, MK Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint List) and student union chairwoman Inbar Hochberg. Butbul recalled that two years ago, when the cleaning workers fought against their dismissal, the students volunteered to help them. “My wish for Israel’s workers on this May Day is to receive better wages, to have their work appreciated as much as [the work of] administrators and professors, and that [the practice of] employment through personnel contractors will cease to exist,” she said.