To Work and Back: Exploring Palestinian Labour Mobility and its Development Effects on the West Bank

Lead Research Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Social and Political Science

Abstract

One in four people live in fragile and conflict affected states and the role of secure labour mobility is essential to enhance resilience of affected populations: a sustainable level of security, justice and jobs helps to 'break cycles of insecurity and reduce the risk of their recurrence' (World Bank 2011). This project examines the contribution of labour mobility to socio-economic development and resilience in the Palestinian West Bank against the backdrop of inequality, segregation and conflict. The focus is on Palestinian labourers who move into Israeli workspaces in daily and often strenuous commutes. Generating empirical evidence on the diverse effects of labour migration in this context will illuminate new opportunities for governmental and non-governmental interventions that strengthen the positive impact of labour mobility. This research is particularly important at a time when numbers of Palestinian workers in Israel have risen steadily for several years with some 92,000 Palestinians currently working in Israel and another 36,000 in Jewish settlements in the West Bank (BOI 2015).
Palestinian labour commuters have played a key role in shaping economic growth patterns and in securing jobs and income, but their mobility also increased dependence on Israel and undermined sustainable growth at home (Farsakh 2005; Hanieh 2006). Palestinians in the West Bank increasingly face an obligation to keep on circulating due to increasing demand for 'cheap labour' in Israel and lacking opportunities at home. A better understanding of how the empowering and disempowering dimensions of labour mobility intersect is essential for the building of social and economic resilience despite an intractable conflict and ongoing military occupation.
'Economic resilience' is meant to decrease the vulnerability of economies to crises or disasters by strengthening their capacity to absorb 'shocks' and achieve growth (Röhn 2015; Hallegatte 2014). However, in the context of the West Bank these 'shocks' have been institutionalised in relations of systematic economic 'de-development' (Roy 1999), intermittent closures and legal segregation (Weizman 2012; Yiftachel 2001), as well as economic dependency of the Palestinian periphery on the Israeli core (Portugali 1993; Roy 2004). This has consequences for questions about how social and economic resilience, as one form of 'getting-by' under occupation (Allen 2008), can be strengthened in inclusive and sustainable ways without further deepening dependency. Despite the benefits of comparably higher wages in Israel the positive spill-over effects into Palestinians' home areas remain severely limited by legal exploitation, widespread fatigue and unreasonable commutes. Building on these conceptual underpinnings, the proposed work-programme has five pillars:
a) Research and analysis: generate new insights about how the disempowering effects of labour mobility can be alleviated with concrete policy-interventions, based on two years of PhD research on Palestinian employment in Israeli workspaces and on additional research to be conducted for six weeks in the West Bank.
b) Knowledge exchange and impact: maximize the academic and non-academic impact of the research outputs through strategic partnerships with users, targeted academic collaboration and the publication and dissemination of high-quality evidence.
c) Sustainable partnerships: engage in a strategic and sustainable partnership with the ILO to inform UN policies on labour migration while developing important skills in effective user engagement.
d) Academic collaboration: collaborate with key-researchers and projects in order to achieve the highest possible quality of publication outputs during the fellowship and to establish a sustainable international network.
e) Skills development: develop the skills necessary for securing a position after the Fellowship with the help of career development workshops, courses and well-structured mentoring.
 
Description As a project conducted in collaboration with the ILO, the findings discussed here are to be viewed in context of the potential impact they may have on future ILO outputs. In its 2017 report on the situation of workers in the 'occupied Arab territories', the ILO estimates the amount of money Palestinians lose to powerful intermediaries and brokers despite the absence of reliable data. It puts those losses at between $66 million and $389 million each year, with affected Palestinian workers paying up to 2,500 shekels ($716) a month for resold permits that are traded by brokers who often charge them additional amounts for transport and other services. In short, the Palestinian workforce is forced to pay a massive "broker tax" that further undermines any sustainable positive impact their work in Israel has on their lives and the Palestinian economy in the occupied West Bank. My research insights build on this idea of "broker tax" and expands it by approaching "tax" in the wider sense of the word, asking: what are the social, economic and human costs that the current system of labour mobility inflicts on the Palestinians and their society? What sacrifices broadly speaking does the current regime demand from the Palestinian workforce and how can we qualify these sacrifices in order to gain new insights about their diverse effects?
Rather than providing a comprehensive survey of Palestinian work in Israel, the insights from this research shed light into several important aspects that are frequently overlooked by recent ILO analysis. The impact the current regime of Palestinian labour mobility has on workers and the socio-economic development of the West Bank demands in-depth qualitative research.
The research analyses the various dimensions of the costs working in Israel and Israeli settlements inflicts on Palestinians in the West Bank. Cost is understood as a wider social, economic and political "tax" that the current arrangement of labour inclusion into Israel demands from Palestinian society and individual labourers. As such it goes beyond conventional labour force research and economics by offering a qualitative analysis of these numerous costs and sacrifices based on two months of field research.
The wider costs were examined in three dimensions:
1. The economic burdens reviewed include deductions such as fees paid for working permits and to labour brokers, as well as the costs of transportation and consumption inside Israel and the illegal withholding of benefits by employers- i.e. a number of financial sacrifices the current flawed system of labour mobility into Israeli workspaces demands from workers. This also concerns the wider impact on the Palestinian economy, such as a weekly cash flow into local markets, but also a drain of skilled workers from local towns and cities due to the much higher wages offered in Israel and settlements.
2. The wider social and human costs reviewed include sacrifices and impacts resulting from: extensive commuting time, exhaustion and lack of sleep, absence from the local community, repeated prison time for illegal trespassing and a tendency to leave school early and prioritise earning money in Israel over higher education or vocational training in the West Bank.
3. The political costs associated with the current system are no less significant: numerous cases underline that Palestinians are aware of the conditionality of their permits on political quiescence. Being black-listed is a widespread fear among workers with permits. Experiences of being approached by Israeli intelligence agents who use work permits as a pressure point in search of recruits are widespread.
Provisional argument
Palestinian work in Israel and settlements is both a result of and contributor to further de-development in the Palestinian West Bank, namely the maintaining of a structural relationship between a dominant and a subordinate economy which distorts the weaker economy's development and effectively undermines it. Although cash flows from higher wages in Israel and settlements support families and help people pay their bills, the current system of economic dependence and labour inclusion effectively undermines sustainable development and economic independence for several reasons that are illuminated in this review of the various social, economic and political costs. This report suggests that measuring the multiple costs associated with mobility towards Israeli workspaces will contribute to a better understanding of systemic flaws and obstacles to development, while mapping the space for potential policy initiatives in the future.
One of the main systemic flaws that inflict high costs for Palestinian workers is an informal and formal system of intermediation between the workers and the Israeli labour market. One of the core problems is a contradictory reality of over- and under-regulation. On the one hand, the system is highly regulated and restricted in a number of ways: limited working permits, channelling workers through designated checkpoints, and making sure supply follows Israeli employer's demand. On the other hand, there is plenty of unregulated space for exploitative practices at the edges of this otherwise highly regulated form of inclusion. Labour brokers exploit these spaces through a monopoly on the connection between labour, permits and employer. Also problematic is the double-edged reality of Israel somewhat tolerating illegal labour inflows across open parts of the border, which makes the workers prone to exploitation underground inside Israel, while simultaneously persecuting and imprisoning these trespassers on a regular basis.
Overall, the Palestinian need for decent work is not matched by the current supply of working permits, and masses of unemployed young Palestinians are pulled into working in Israel without permits, often during school holidays or instead of education. Faced with the prospect of unemployment at home, many drop out of school altogether. But once they take up unregulated work in Israel they enter a vicious circle: frequent controls by Israeli authorities lead to frequent imprisonment and ultimately, immobilisation by being issued a so-called "condition", or "tnai", which threatens individuals with extensive prison time should they enter Israel illegally once more. Consequently, many of them end up being stuck in the West Bank for extended periods of time, unable both to take up work in Israel and to find work at home. In some cases individuals risk lengthy imprisonment by entering nevertheless under pressure to support their family. Although workers have reported that they often succeed in obtaining permits with the help of lawyers at Israeli courts after a certain period has passed, this vicious circle inflicts high costs on the workers, their families and the potential of their local economy.
All in all, many of these problems arise from the contradictory conflation of tight regulation on the one hand, and lacking control on the other - meaning that the current system is rampant with loopholes that are exploited in ways that violate workers' rights and undermine any positive impact this labour inclusion could have on economic development in the West Bank. While restrictive Israeli policies undermine their freedom of movement and access, the absence of such policies and a lack of execution in other areas gives too much freedom to those who exploit the labourers to make profits.
Exploitation Route Academically, I am still working on the major outputs but it is expected that both specialized social scientists and a general anthropological audience will be interested in the upcoming outputs. The research is also being taken forward by a follow up funding application no a related topic (decent work and digital economies). Moreover, some of the insights are being offered to the ILO for use in its annual report on Palestine.
Sectors Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy
URL https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2017/08/02/occupied-labour-treadmill-palestinian-work-israel
 
Description Already during the project period, only a few months after the fieldwork was completed, a briefing published via IRIN news reached out to public audiences and policy makers (https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2017/08/02/occupied-labour-treadmill-palestinian-work-israel). While it is difficult to assess the exact impact of this briefing, the fact that it was widely shared in twitter and social media by leading UN staff indicates its good perception. The visibility created by the briefing also resulted in an invitation to a workshop held at the LSE early 2018 about the regulation of everyday life in Palestine. Moreover, public engagement events such as high-level meetings with ILO officials are likely to have at least impact in the sense that it facilitates an ongoing involvement. Currently (02/2018), I am drafting a summary of my research insights to be included with the material the field office submits to the regional headquarters, where the ILO's annual report on the situation of Palestinian workers will be produced. It has yet to be seen how successful this attempt at influencing policy and UN practice will be (to be updated). Early 2018, I held a follow-up meeting with Christiane Kuptsch, Senior Migration Expert at the ILO in Geneva. My publication Mobility Equity in a Globalized World (World Development), benefitted from this meeting and came out of the visit to Harvard University as part of the fellowship. During the visit to the ILO headquarters, I also got a chance to talk to one of the researchers who worked on the Palestine annual report, and she said that the ILO team found the internal draft report I sent them very useful, although they could not quote from it directly due to ILO procedures and rules. Moreover, the project allowed the subsequent collaboration with the ILO MIGRATION branch in Geneva in the submission of a successful application to a New Investigator Grant, to begin May 2019. As part of the grant, I will work closely with ILO experts and thus managed to draw sustainable impact capacity from the initial postdoc fellowship. The grant has also contributed to a journal article that is currently under review at Settler Colonial Studies (if accepted details can be added later).
Sector Other
Impact Types Societal,Policy & public services
 
Description Collaboration with International Labour Organization 
Organisation International Labour Organization (ILO)
Country Switzerland 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution The collaboration with the ILO led to the production of an ILO Report title Digital Refugee Livelihoods and Decent Work (see publications, in press). The collaboration then merged into an Implementation Agreement signed between the School of Social and Political Science at Edinburgh and the ILO, to conduct research towards several ILO publications on the role of digital economy among refugees. These reports, including 8 country policy briefs, 1 Synthesis report, and 1 background paper for an ILO Global Forum, are currently in progress and schedule to be published throughout 2023.
Collaborator Contribution The ILO contributed by ways of editing and feedbacking on the draft of the report. The ILO has also paid for the layout of the report and for the printing of 100 reports as an ILO book. The ILO has further offers continuous input and guidance regarding the implementation of the findings from this ESRC project for real world change, allowing me to use my expertise and build o the findings of the research to shape international policy regarding refugees in the digital economy.
Impact The collaboration resulted in an ILO Report title Digital Refugee Livelihoods and Decent Work, and by ways of follow-up consultancy work, to another ILO report titled Towards decent work for young refugees and host communities in the digital platform economy in Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Egypt. As of 2023, an Implementation Agreement between Edinburgh and the ILO has led to a number of other outputs, all of which are currently forthcoming and in press.
Start Year 2019
 
Description High-level UN meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact In a meeting with the ILO's Deputy Regional Director, Frank Hagemann, in Beirut I shared the main insights from the field research conducted early 2017. Also present was the ILO's senior employment expert Tariq Haq. Potential options for the production of a working paper were also discussed. The main engagement here focused on using the research insights to underline a shift in thinking away from quantitative to qualitative analysis of labour in Palestine.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Public Policy Briefing 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The production of a publicly available briefing on the research insights allowed engagements with different publics, via social media and twitter. For example, leading UN officials re-tweeted the briefing and and the LSE invited me to a workshop based on the visibility the briefing provided. The briefing can be found here: https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2017/08/02/occupied-labour-treadmill-palestinian-work-israel
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://www.irinnews.org/investigations/2017/08/02/occupied-labour-treadmill-palestinian-work-israel