GUSH KATIF FARMERS SHORT-HANDED FOR HIGH SEASON AS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 TEL AVIV 006498

SIPDIS

NEA/IPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/19/2014
TAGS: KWBG ECON IS SETTLEMENTS ISRAELI PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS
SUBJECT: GUSH KATIF FARMERS SHORT-HANDED FOR HIGH SEASON AS
THAI WORKERS DEPART

Classified By: Economic Counselor Bill Weinstein for reasons 1.4 (b) an
d (d)


1. (C) Summary: On Saturday, December 18, the visiting Thai
Labor Minister and the Thai Ambassador to Israel met with 150
Thai agricultural workers in Gush Katif and encouraged them
to leave the settlement for security reasons. The meeting
resulted in over 80 workers tentatively agreeing to depart,
either to find jobs inside Green Line Israel or return to
Thailand. Gush Katif communications director Devorah Rosen
told Econoff that only twenty Thais intend to leave, a number
that would not cause the settlement farms to close
permanantly, but would hinder "high season" production from
December to February, especially on farms larger than 20
dunams. In the longer-term Gush Katif hopes to replace
departing Thais with Nepalese workers, but this lengthy
bureaucratic process has been made more difficult by the
GOI's reluctance to grant employment permits for settlements
slated for evacuation. While Rosen asserted that Thai
laborers are well-treated and better paid than their
counterparts inside Israel, the Thai Embassy described poor
working conditions in the settlement, including employers who
withhold salaries and passports to prevent workers from
fleeing. End Summary.

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Thai Government Intensifies Push for Laborers to Leave
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2. (SBU) Thai Labor Minister Uraiwan Thienthong and Thai
Ambassador to Israel Kasivat Paruggamanont met December 18
with some 150 Thai laborers currently working in the Gush
Katif settlement, in an effort to encourage them to depart
immediately. The meeting was an intensification of the GoT's
four-year-old policy of discouraging laborers from accepting
employment in Gush Katif, and came on the heels of the third
killing of a Thai worker in the Gaza Strip since the intifada
began. According to Thai Deputy Chief of Mission Chantipha
Phutrakul, some eighty laborers raised their hands when the
Labor Minister asked, "Who is ready to leave?" Phutrakul
noted that although the Minister cited Israel's planned
withdrawal from Gaza as one of many incentives for laborers
to depart, the GoT's concern is for laborers' security, "not
Israel's political process."

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Israeli Immigration Will Deport Illegals, Find Others Jobs
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3. (C) Nearly one third of Gush Katif's Thai workers are
illegally residing in Israel, and many are "using the
settlement as a hide-out from the immigration police."
Phutrakul said the Minister and the Ambassador addressed
these laborers' fear of deportation by simply asking them to
come home, stating, "You will find greener pastures
elsewhere." Conversely, workers still in legal status can
expect assistance from Israeli immigration -- Ambassador
Paruggamanont met with the chief of the immigration police,
who reportedly agreed to assist those workers whose visas are
less than two years old in finding jobs inside Green Line
Israel.

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Every Worker Counts in High Season
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4. (SBU) Devorah Rosen, Communications Director for Gush
Katif, told Econoff that not more than 20 laborers will leave
the settlement. "Eighty may have raised their hands at the
meeting, but they didn't sign any agreement," she said. The
settlement leadership is optimistic that Thai anxieties will
dissipate within "three to four weeks", and that the Thai
government's calls for depart will have little lasting effect
on settlement agriculture. In the short term, however, even
20 lost laborers will prove problematic, since "every person
counts" during the "high season" of production which runs
from December to late February. She explained that the
larger farmers -- those with more than 20 dunams of land --
will be hit especially hard by the loss of even a few
laborers since unlike on smaller farms, landowners will be
unable to fill in for the departed workers themselves.

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GOI Hindering Long-Term Replacements
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5. (SBU) While the manpower agency that supplies Gush Katif
has brought in several Nepalese laborers who can replace
Thais, settlement farmers are faced with a lengthy
bureaucratic process within the Ministry of the Interior in
order to secure permits for new workers. Since Gush Katif is
slated for evacuation, the Ministry is reluctant to issue new
work permits for the settlement. Rosen noted that farmers
must ask the Ministry to transfer existing permits by
canceling those of the Thai workers and reissuing them under
the names of their Nepalese replacements. One can "read
between the lines", she added, to see that the GOI is "making
this about" disengagement. With only twenty workers who need
replacing, Rosen said, the thorny permit process will be
manageable. If that number increases, however, farming in
Gush Katif could suffer a serious and long-term setback.

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Katif Says Workers Satisfied, Thai Embassy Cites Maltreatment
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6. (SBU) Rosen said that the Thai workers in Gush Katif are
happy to stay -- they enjoy excellent treatment and high
salaries, and they get Saturdays off, unlike their
counterparts in Green Line Israel. As an example of good
employer-employee relations she cited the winter coats the
workers received as holiday gifts from their employers in
Ganne Tal and Gush Katif. When it comes to the three Thais
who were killed, she continued, laborers view themselves as
"victims of circumstance" rather than specific targets of
terrorism.


7. (C) In the view of the Thai Embassy, however, a vast
majority of the Thai laborers in Gush Katif would prefer to
work elsewhere. Relations with employers are bad, explained
Phutrakul, with some farmers withholding salaries and
passports in an attempt to prevent laborers from fleeing in
the face of the ongoing security threat. She added that
laborers are also forced to work 15-20 more hours per week
than their Green Line Israel counterparts. Along with the
constant security threat within the Gaza Strip, Thai laborers
have found themselves in a situation Phutrakul said the GoT
"cannot abide anymore."

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