Israel’s Invisible Workers
The site in Kiryat Biyalik where a worker died this week, October 5, 2019
Yet another worker was killed in Israel this week. An air-conditioning technician in his 50s died Sunday, after falling five stories while working at an apartment building in Kiryat Bialik. The Magen David Adom medic who was called to the scene said, “There was nothing we could do but declare him dead.”
It’s not only the ambulance service, but also the police and the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry that act as if all there is nothing they can do but declare the deaths of workers, as if it were a matter of divine decree and not the result of a systematic abdication of responsibility by everyone involved in the issue. No other explanation is possible for the horrifying fact that since the start of the year, 67 people have died in work accidents in Israel.
The public has grown accustomed to seeing workers’ deaths as routine. Just last week, one worker was killed and another seriously injured while building a sewage reservoir near Ashkelon. Two weeks ago, two workers were seriously injured when a crane fell in the parking lot of a shopping center in Ma’alot-Tarshiha.
What are their names? Where did they come from? Did they have families? The public doesn’t appear to be interested in any of this. In most cases, the victims aren’t Jews, but workers who are invisible to the lords of the land. This time, the death did not take place at a construction site, but contempt for worker safety has spread like the plague.
The utter indifference toward construction accidents displayed by former Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services Minister Haim Katz was a prime example of the dereliction of duty. Construction companies understood the spirit of their commander quite well and didn’t let the victims interfere with maximizing their profits. The combination of public apathy and the government’s blind eye created a capitalist Wild West that has allowed criminal developers to treat human life cheaply.