WELCOME page 124

sus is that foreign workers,
often living 10-20 people to a
slum apartment or in miserable
construction site barracks,
are an alien underclass that Is-
rael doesn't need. If allowed to
stay, the reasoning goes, they
will become a permanent "social
problem," as they have in the
West.
But there is another reason
for wanting them out — to pro-
tect them from being exploited
by grossly unscrupulous Israeli
employers and their agents.
TV and newspaper stories
have repeatedly showed con-
struction workers, mainly Ro-
manians, living on top of one
another in sheds that boil in
summer and freeze in winter.
Their complaints of being paid
too little and too late are well
known.
But in mid-August a new low
was reached. Israel Television's
Channel Two showed six Turk-
ish farm workers being impris-
oned in a locked cage on a farm
in Moshav Sde Yitzhak.
The farmowner, Roni Rodna'i,
explained that an Israeli man-
power company had brought
him the workers from Turkey.
Rodna'i said he told the compa-
ny to send them back to Turkey
because they "hadn't worked
out" on the farm. The company
locked the workers in the cage
for fear that they would run
away and seek employment else-
where. Manpower firms deposit
some $1,700 with the govern-
ment for every worker they im-
port, and forfeit the deposit if
they "lose" the worker.
Police were considering filing
charges against the farmowner
and the manpower company.
They were also preparing
to send the Turkish workers
home.
In the Tel Aviv office of a pri-
vate, European Community-
funded organization called "Kay
L'Oved" ("Worker Outreach"),
the hall was filled with Roman-
ian construction workers with
complaints.
Petre Gidarcha, a 55-year-old
construction worker in Netivot,
wants to return to Romania,
but the manpower company that
brought him here a year ago re-
fuses to return his passport, he
said through an interpreter.
The company promised the
minimum wage of about $3, but
has only paid $2.50 an hour.
(Even the $3 minimum wage is
much more than the guest work-
ers earn at home.)
They also, he continued, took
out about $100 every month
from his $400 monthly pay
and refuses to return the accu-
mulated sum. He lived with oth-
er Romanian workers in
barracks on the construction site
— "in crowded conditions, with
no hot water," Mr. Gidarcha
said.

WELCOME page 128

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