Following Adalah and Laborer's Voice Petition: Supreme Court Issues Injunction Preventing Ministry of Labor from Closing Kufr Kana Unemployment Office

On 8 September 2004, the Supreme Court of Israel issued an injunction prohibiting the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor (MITL) from closing the Kufr Kana unemployment office, which serves over 4,000 Arab citizens of Israel living in nine towns and villages in the north.

The Supreme Court issued the injunction in response to a petition filed the same day by Adalah and the Laborer's Voice (Sawt el-Amel). Adalah Attorney Gadeer Nicola submitted the petition, together with a motion for injunction, on behalf eight unemployed individuals from Kufr Kana and neighboring villages, in the name of Adalah and the Laborer's Voice against the MITL. The petitioners demanded that the MITL be prevented from shutting down the unemployment office in Kufr Kana and merging it with the Nazareth office.

Kufr Kana's unemployment office serves the approximately 71,000 residents of Kufr Kana, Reineh, Tur'an, Ein Mahel, Beineh Nujeidat, Mashhad, Arab el-Heib, Romaneh and Uzeir. The number of job seekers in these nine Arab towns stands at over 4,000 people. All of these towns suffer from poor socio-economic conditions and, according to the socio-economic criteria of the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), are ranked within the three lowest bands (1, 2 and 3) of a total of ten bands. The National Employment Service recognizes these towns as centers of high unemployment, as the unemployment rates in them exceed 10% of the total labor force; the rate of unemployment in the nine towns in fact ranges from 15% to 30%.

As part of its reform plan, the MITL recently decided to close ten unemployment offices throughout the country, both in Arab and Jewish towns, and to transfer the affected job seekers to neighboring offices. Among the unemployment offices earmarked for closure is the Kufr Kana office, whose users will be redirected to the unemployment office in Nazareth. The rationale given by the MITL for this decision was cutting costs and increasing efficiency.

In the petition, Adalah argued that, unlike the unemployment office in Kufr Kana, the other offices slated for closure by the MITL serve small towns, with low unemployment rates relative to the unemployment rate in the towns served by the Kufr Kana office. The following table details the number of job seekers in the ten towns whose unemployment offices face closure.

Number of job seekers in unemployment offices to be closed by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, as of June 2003:

Source: The National Employment Service

The petitioners further argued that the statistics for Jewish towns in the same geographical area, and in which unemployment offices will not be shut down, clearly reveal that the MITL's decision is not based on transparent, equitable criteria, and fails to fulfill the goals of the ministry's reform plan.

Furthermore, the MITL did not decide to close unemployment offices in Jewish towns with high rates of unemployment, which serve a smaller number of people than the office in Kufr Kana.

Socio-Economic Data for Kufr Kana and Jewish Towns Suffering from High Rates of Unemployment in Which Unemployment Offices will Remain Open

Sources: The Central Bureau of Statistics and the National Employment Service

In the petition, Adalah contended that the decision to shut down the unemployment office in Kufr Kana violates the rights of the job seekers to dignity, since those who will be reassigned to the Nazareth office will be forced to pay for public transportation to Nazareth on a weekly basis, which will impose an additional economic burden upon them.

The petitioners emphasized that the decision discriminates against job seekers on the basis of their national belonging and breaches their basic right to equality, as well as their constitutional right to dignity and their right to social security. In addition, the petition stated that MITL's decision is unreasonable, disproportionate and must therefore be nullifed.

It is important to note that the unemployment office in Nazareth, which serves the 100,000 residents of Nazareth, Illut, Kufr Manda, and Yaffa, is already over-crowded and under-staffed, with the number of job seekers in these four towns amounting to approximately 6,200 individuals. According to the CBS's socio-economic criteria, these towns are also ranked in the three lowest bands, and head the Labor Office's list of centers of high unemployment. If the MITL closes the Kufr Kana employment office, the number job seekers to be served by the Nazareth office would rise dramatically to over 10,000 people, severely compromising the standard of service provided.

H.C. 8249/04 Ziad Matar et. al. vs. Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor