TEL AVIV—This Year’s May 1 fell on on the Israeli Independence Day, so various left groups, including the Histadrut union federation, held the May Day march on April 27. A few thousand participated, including the Progressive Labor Party (PLP).
Gov’t Withhold Wages from Black Refugees
The best part of the march: African refugee workers fighting back. Many protested against the racist wage deduction law for refugee workers.
There are over fifty thousand refugees from East Africa, whom the racist Israeli government tries deport to their near-certain deaths. Most have fled the monstrous fascist state at Eritrea or the genocide in South Sudan. While many are granted visas, they are still not granted the right the work, so they work without documents. Bosses pay them far less than the minimum wage and work them for long hours (see box about the condition of Black workers in Israel.
Effective May 1, the government will be deducting 20 percent of asylum-seekers’ wages. The money will be returned when they leave the country. Employers will deposit the deducted wages in a fund managed by Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot (Surely that fund will be making even more money for the bosses.) The fund was approved under the racist Prevention of Infiltration Law.
The law is intentionally driving Black workers to further destitution. The racist Israeli government’s intention is to force workers to leave. Instead, they marched on May Day (see photos with signs in both depicted in Tigrinya and Hebrew) demanding an end to the racist law and for better pay and work conditions.
Direct Employment
The Coalition for Direct Employment was also present. Some chanted for the end of contract employment and for workers’ rights. There were very few revolutionary slogans, although we PL’ers did raise such calls.
The Coalition for Direct Employment is an organization fighting against ultra-exploitative and often racist contract bosses. Part of the Coalition’s work is organizing contract workers into study groups so they can better fight their bosses for better working conditions.
Greetings to Workers Overseas
We, PLP supporters in “Israel”-Palestine, send our Mayday greetings to comrades and workers overseas. Here, we are faced with life and political work in a country overrun with fascism. The government has won many Jewish workers to racist ideas. The bosses’ state has forced the majority of Palestinian workers to despair. The bosses have also passed laws to prosecute opposition groups.
While things are monstrously hard, we retain our hope that with slow and patient work, revolution and liberation will eventually come. If not in our generation, then in our children’s generation, and if not in our children’s generation, then in our grandchildren’s generation. This is the reason we keep fighting - the glimpse of hope for a better world where workers will take control over their lives and work from the bosses and build a future of freedom and equality.
We say—Jewish, Arab, and Africans—unite for workers’ revolution!