In its response to a lawsuit filed by Adalah and Sawt el-Amel (the Laborer’s Voice) in the Tel Aviv District Labor Court, the Israel Railways Company (IRC) has announced that it will replace the military service criterion as a condition for employing guards and supervisors with another criterion that has the same content, namely having worked for 18 consecutive months in an organization “with a hierarchical structure”, or having worked for a company for at least one year. The IRC issued dismissal notices in March of this year to a third of its Arab workforce that had been employed for less than a year.  The new announcement was released following the lawsuit filed to the IRC by Adalah and Sawt el-Amel as well as an appeal filed by Attorney Tawfiq Tibi on behalf of two Arab workers, who were dismissed by the IRC on the pretext of not having served in the Israeli military.

The IRC recently published a new bid for hiring guards and supervisors of railway junctions and awarded the contract to a firm called the “Guards’ Company.” Under the new agreement between the IRC and the Guards’ Company, which employs over 130 Arab workers, the Guards’ Company is obliged only to employ workers who have completed military service. This change in policy thus discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel, who are exempt from military service, and is certain to lead to their collective dismissal from their jobs and will preclude their future employment by the IRC. It thereby violates their constitutional right to freedom of occupation. This discrimination is all the more severe given that the post of railway guard is  essentially civilian and not military in nature.

In response to the announcement by the IRC, Adalah and Sawt el-Amel stated that this step represents a superficial change in name only, rather than the substantive change that the organizations demanded in their lawsuit. In its response, the IRC claims that the criterion of working in an organization “with a hierarchical structure” includes serving in the Israeli military. However, the response contains no other detail regarding the meaning of the term “with a hierarchical structure,” which is therefore vague and will lead to workers being hired in the absence of clear and binding criteria. The solution suggested by the IRC also places a burden on workers to provide that their previous places of employment were organizations “with a hierarchical structure.” Adalah and Sawt el-Amel further stated that, “Ultimately, the amendment proposed by the railways company reduces the legal responsibility for dismissing Arab workers and attempts to shift the burden of proof to workers themselves.”

The lawsuit filed by Adalah and Sawt el-Amel on 30 April 2009 focused on two specific cases of Arab workers: One representing Mr. Abdullah Tayeh, from Qalansawah, who has worked for the railway since September 2008, and another case representing Mr. Abdullah Nashef from Taybeh, who has worked for the railway since May 2008. When they started to work for the company, as inspectors on railway crossings, the only condition of employment was knowledge of the Hebrew language. They took a reading comprehension test in Hebrew and both successfully passed. The company then sent them to a short course in which they learned to use communication tools and other instruments used by guards on the railway. Following the course, they were given two examinations, theoretical and practical, both of which they successfully passed.

In their affidavits, the two workers stressed that their work did not need military experience. Their work requires the reporting of accidents happening on the railway or in its vicinity, such as people walking on the tracks, drivers not yielding to the traffic lights or train crossings and other technical malfunctions.

Citation:  Labor lawsuit 4962/09, Abdullah Tayeh v. the Israel Railway Company (pending)

The Lawsuit (in Hebrew)