The management of a major industrial plant has accused its Arab employees from the administered territories of sabotage and willful absenteeism resulting in significant damage and financial losses, according to news reports this week.
The complaint was contained in a secret memorandum from Dov Pollak, chairman of the Polgat textile mills in Kiryat Gat, to Minister of Commerce and Industry Ariel Sharon. The memorandum was prepared three months ago, Haaretz reported Tuesday, long before the latest wave of disturbances in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to Haaretz, Polgat officials initially refused to confirm the memorandum, but Pollak later told the newspaper that it had been prepared at his request to be forwarded to state agencies.
Pollak maintained that similar situations exist in other factories employing labor from the territories. But Haaretz reported that a survey by its reporters of industrial plants in the same area failed to substantiate his claim.
The memorandum said most of the sabotage occurred during the night shift, when 90 percent of the workers are Arabs. Arabs from the Hebron area and the Gaza Strip comprise about half of Polgat’s work force of 1,200.
According to Polgat management, machinery was put out of action for several days at a time and textiles were slashed with knives. Polgat placed its losses at $100,000 over three months.
The memorandum questions the ability of industrial plants in Israel to operate with labor from the administered territories. According to Haaretz, it was prepared to bolster Polgat’s case for importing labor from abroad. Between 6,000 and 9,000 foreign workers are presently employed in Israeli industries, according to unofficial estimates.
This apparently is a result of unrest in the territories, past problems with Arab workers and the refusal of Jewish workers to perform manual labor. Polgat has recently brought in 60 workers from Portugal to replace Arabs from the territories, though 25,000 Arabs in the territories are presently registered as unemployed.
The Polgat memorandum complained that many of its Arab employees “disappear” during work hours, even though they know the factory cannot function without them. The absentee rate among Arab workers in Israeli industrial plants in general has averaged 45 percent since the disturbances began on Dec. 9 and 70 percent in the Haifa area. Kiryat Gat is in the Negev.
Arab workers at the Polgat mills recently demanded a day off on Friday, the Moslem Sabbath, and that the management provide a mosque on the plant premises. The latter demand was flatly rejected. Polgat sources said that since then swastikas were found painted on the factory walls.
Muhammed Miari, an Arab Knesset member representing the Progressive List for Peace, accused Polgat of spreading libelous and racist allegations against its Arab employees.
But Minister of Labor Moshe Katzav warned Tuesday that “if the unrest continues, with the Arabs from Judaca, Samaria and the Gaza Strip not showing up for work, we will have to consider positively requests by industrialists to import foreign workers.”
(Jerusalem correspondent Gil Sedan also contributed to this report.)
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
