Thai laborers working on a plantation at moshav Kfar Ahim. (Photo by Limor Edri)

Those who refused were discharged on the spot and became liable for deportation. The Hotline for Migrant Workers affidavit was submitted to oppose a petition to the court by Denia Sibos, a contracting firm, to allow it to bring in 1,000 new foreign workers instead hiring workers already illegally in Israel.

Denia Sibos argues that it cannot find either Israeli or foreign workers now in the country that are experts in infrastructure, the only profession it needs.

Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent an angry letter to cabinet secretary Israel Maimon expressing his strong opposition to a proposal, due to be discussed in today's cabinet meeting, from Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz and Housing and Construction Minister Effie Eitam, to increase the number of foreign workers allowed for agriculture and construction.

"The proposal is in total contradiction of the government's consistent policy of reducing the number of foreign workers so as to bring unemployed Israelis back into the labor market and cut welfare payments to the unemployed," Netanyahu wrote.

Netanyahu says this government policy has increased the number of Israelis employed in construction by 10,000. Netanyahu denied Ministers Katz and Eitam's assertion that they coordinated their proposal with the treasury.

Surprisingly, Trade and Industry Minister Ehud Olmert is also in favor of increasing the number of foreign workers, at least in agriculture. Only six weeks ago he ordered the number of foreign workers in construction to be cut from 30,000 to 23,000, and in agriculture from 28,000 to 22,000, in line with the cabinet's decision of April 2003.

The treasury sought to include these reductions in the Economic Arrangements Law but Katz, supported by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, scuppered the move. Farmers and industrialists managed to block another proposal in the Economic Arrangements Law that called for an increase in the tax on employers of foreign workers in agriculture and construction.

The success of employers in stopping measures to make hiring foreign workers more expensive so Israelis could replace them told the treasury which way the wind was blowing. It fears pressure from employers to void limits Sharon in September 2002 put on importing more foreign workers for agriculture and construction.

To avoid bringing in new workers, employers have been told to fill their quotas with workers now in Israel illegally. However this "laundering" of workers proceeded slowly and seems to have ground to a halt.

Denia Sibos says it needs 1,000 new workers, and other companies have also reported a dearth of workers. But Interior Ministry representatives last week told the court in Nazareth that hears cases of foreign workers awaiting deportation that no illegal foreign workers can be placed because there were no empty jobs available.

Sigal Rozen of the Hotline for Migrant Workers says the discrepancy is because the employers are hoping to have illegal workers deported to pave the way for bringing in new ones. The Hotline says contractors do not want to employ foreign workers now in Israel who are more knowledgeable about their rights. They prefer to wait for the government to ease the ban on importing new foreign workers, from whom it will be easier to extract illegal payments and fees, the organization says.

Esther Dominisini, director general of the Employment Service, says 2,000 unskilled Israeli construction workers are registered with the service. Dominisini is trying to convince the Contractors Association to train them in infrastructure work, but the association says there is no government support for retraining courses, and Israelis don't want to work in construction, or are already working in construction and also receiving benefits. At the end of November, an employment fair was held in which 91 men registered as construction workers. At the end of the fair, 14 had gotten jobs and 35 others were wait-listed.