The Construction Workers’ Union, the organization Kav LaOved, and additional civil society organizations appealed to Defense Minister Israel Katz, the Commander of the Home Front Command, and the Director-General of the Ministry of the Interior, demanding that they immediately instruct local authorities to close workplaces operating in violation of the guidelines. This follows the deaths of two workers as a result of shrapnel from an Iranian missile at a construction site in Yehud. “Home Front Command guidelines must not legitimize unnecessary risks to workers, especially at the expense of vulnerable workers,” the urgent appeal states.
“We do not take lightly the damage caused to employers during this period, however human lives are at stake. Workers employed at construction sites, in open agricultural areas, in services and commerce, in home caregiving and more, are present at their workplaces by virtue of their employment relationships. It is the duty of employers to ensure the existence of protected spaces, and it is the responsibility of the state to enforce this,” the appeal states.
The letter was signed by Mazal Golan, Chair of the Histadrut Construction and Wood Workers’ Union; Ohad Amer, CEO of Kav LaOved; Dr. Saar Lahmi, Chair of the Association for Occupational Medicine; and attorney Becky Keshat from the Forum for the Struggle Against Poverty.
The organizations emphasized that since the beginning of the ‘Swords of Iron’ war, many workers have been killed while at work, and those killed and injured in recent days in the campaign against Iran join dozens of other workers who have been killed or injured over the past two and a half years because they did not have a standard protected space nearby or were unfamiliar with the emergency guidelines. They further noted that in sectors defined as essential, including construction, agriculture, and industry, hundreds of thousands of Israeli workers are employed alongside about 240,000 migrant workers who perform manual labor, most of them paid hourly wages, and many of them from the socio-economic periphery. Many migrant workers, and even some immigrants, it was noted, lack linguistic or cultural accessibility and are experiencing the reality of missile fire for the first time.
“We ask that you clarify the directives of the Commander of the Home Front Command, immediately instruct enforcement authorities and local governments to act to close workplaces that are not operating according to the protection guidelines and are putting workers’ lives at risk, and that you instruct employers to train workers in languages they understand and to practice proper behavior when receiving an alert,” they wrote in closing their letter. They also emphasized that the Israel Police and local authorities must prohibit the opening of workplaces that do not provide a standard protected space for all their employees. “These are matters of life and death, and protecting them requires your attention as soon as possible.”
