Adalah Files a Pre-Petition Requesting that the Office of Employment Service Meet the Demands of the Labor Office in Nazareth to End the Strike

Today, Adalah filed a pre-petition to the Attorney General’s office requesting that it take immediate action to end the strike currently taking place at the Labor Office in Nazareth. Adalah seeks the intervention of the Attorney General with the Office of Employment Services (OES) to meet the demands made by the workers at the Labor Office in Nazareth for more security personnel to ensure their safety. It is the responsibility of the OES to meet those needs, which they have so far ignored.

The strike began at the Labor Office on 3 June 2001. Ten days later, a district-wide strike was called by the Labor Offices, demanding greater budgetary allocations from the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry responded by allocating an extra NIS 500,000 to the Labor Offices, ending the district-wide strikes. The demands of the Nazareth office, however, fall under the jurisdiction of the OES, which answers to the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. Adalah asserts that the OES should take similar measures to end the strike.

The Labor Office dispenses unemployment compensation from the National Insurance Institute, as well as assists the unemployed to find work. In Nazareth, the office services over 100,000 Arab citizens including residents of Jaffa, Eilot, Kufr Manda, Ein Mahal, and Beer Elmaksor. Consequently, the continued closure of this office severely damages Arab individuals who are unemployed.

Attorney Jamil Dakwar from Adalah argued that, while respecting the interests of the workers at the Labor Office in Nazareth to strike in order to improve their working conditions, the OES should meet their demands for security and return to the unemployed in and around Nazareth the means to a minimum standard of living. Accordingly, Dakwar has demanded that the Attorney General’s office inquire as to why the OES has not met its responsibility for the Nazareth Labor Office.

Adalah sent a similar appeal to the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Shlomo Benizri, on 12 June. He has not yet responded.