Why is Israel's bid to fill labor gap with foreign workers drawing ire from Indian unions?

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) — Drained of workforce amid its protracted assault on the Gaza Strip, Israel has started looking to India to help mitigate the ensuing labor shortage as hundreds of thousands of reservists have been called up.

But even with New Delhi willing to allow Indian workers to seek employment in Israel, many have opposed the scheme, including trade unions and politicians, for the transfer of tens of thousands.

This month in the northern Indian province of Haryana, 10,000 openings for skilled workers in Israel's construction sector were among the jobs advertised by a government-run employment service.

A spokesperson for the Israel Builders Association, Shay Pauzner, said it was looking to "bring in 10,000 as per government approval" to Israel, with the number of workers sent expected to go up to 30,000.

"It is an ongoing exercise and will take months," he said.

The issue also surfaced in talks earlier this month between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi.

According to the Israeli government, the two leaders discussed expediting the arrival of foreign workers from India to Israel.

Indian trade unions, however, are urging authorities not to allow the transfer amid the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip and violence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"It has a political angle as well," said Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of All India Trade Union Congress.

"In the present situation, they are replacing Palestinian workers with Indian workers," Kaur told Anadolu, underlining that this was a proposition that could not acceptable.

As strategic partners, India and Israel celebrated 30 years of bilateral ties in 2022.

While India's formal recognition of Israel goes back to 1950, regular embassies were opened in 1992, when full diplomatic relations were established between the two countries. Bilateral trade has since grown to about $10 billion.

- ‘Stop-gap solution’

Kabir Taneja, a Middle East researcher at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation, told Anadolu that Israel was "looking at Indian workers as a stop-gap solution."

"Long term viability of this will depend both on the kind of work force Israel needs and the security it can offer," he said, adding that India could "indeed offer human resources in areas such as palliative and old age care, and other areas of nursing, medical and so on."

However, he was more skeptical of the appeal of more "labor-intensive" work, especially considering the "prevailing security concerns."

"I think what kind of workers are needed will determine the success or failure of this bilateral endeavor," Taneja explained.

According to Kaur, a big part of why Indian trade unions' are against the move is that Israel is "butchering the Palestinian people and women and kids are dying."

"The India government should not allow Israel to take workers from India in the present circumstances," she said.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing more than 20,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 52,586, according to health authorities in the enclave.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

- Support for fellow Palestinian workers

The Construction Workers Federation of India is one of the labor unions that has declared its opposition to sending members to Israel, as well as to Tel Aviv's "genocidal attacks" on Palestinians.

In a statement, the union said it "strongly objects to any attempt to send the poor construction workers of our country to Israel to overcome its shortage of workers and in any way support its genocidal attacks on Palestine killing thousands of innocent people including children and women."

"Construction workers of India stand in solidarity with the working class and the people of Palestine under genocidal attack by Israel with the full backing of the USA and other imperialist countries," it added.

Others, like Harbhajan Singh from Hind Mazdoor Sabha, one of India's largest labor federations, have voiced concern that Indian workers risked becoming victims "in the friendship between India and Israel."

"We think it is not a pro-citizen decision and it is anti-national," he told Anadolu. "The government should recall the workers and stop sending any more, because it is putting them into a conflict."

While the jobs could help lower unemployment in India, he argued that this was far outweighed by the security risk the sent workers would face in an active conflict zone.

"We have already requested the government about the issue, but there has been no positive response. We will not sit silent and soon decide about the future course of action in the matter," he said.

In Haryana, where the advertisement was issued, the main opposition Indian National Congress party has also rebuffed the scheme.

"The main question is why there is a need to send our youth to a conflict hit place," lawmaker Neeraj Sharma said in an interview with Anadolu, pointing out that New Delhi had evacuated dozens of Indian nationals from Israel soon after the conflict in Gaza began on Oct. 7.

Allowing young people to go to a place where such an evacuation took place would not be justifiable, he asserted.

"If the government is concerned with the youth, why don't they give them jobs here," Sharma questioned.

- No replacement

The Indian government, however, told Parliament in December that New Delhi had not engaged in any discussions with Israel on replacing Palestinian workers with those from India.

Reiterating the government's stance, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said: "On a larger perspective, India has been looking at labor mobility agreements around the world, so that our citizens get access to the global workplace."

"Since 2022, we have been discussing a bilateral framework in the construction and caregiver sectors, which is a long-term initiative," Bagchi said.

Kaur, the general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress, argued, meanwhile, that India's priority should be a policy to protect citizens who migrated to other countries.

"We have seen in Gulf countries, when there is a crisis, workers do face a lot of problems like wage issues, compensation in times of deaths etc.," she said. "We have been demanding from successive governments that there should be a policy for international migration, but nothing positive has happened."

In August, Indian Parliament was informed that around 13 million Indians lived in countries abroad, including as laborers, professionals, and experts.

The government maintains that it is taking steps to protect Indian expatriate workers, with a "robust mechanism to monitor working conditions and grievance redressal of all Indian workers abroad."

"Our missions and posts abroad remain vigilant all the time and actively monitor and follow each type of grievance received from the Indian nationals in foreign countries," the government told the lawmakers.

Pointing to the significance of trade and people-to-people ties between India and Israel, Taneja, the research fellow, said:

"Air India's direct flight between Delhi and Tel Aviv which started in 2018 was the first such flight to use Saudi airspace. So, both trade and people connections have been beneficial more than just bilaterally," he said.

Beyond that, Taneja added that India is one of Israel's top three defense markets and that Indian companies have "invested in critical infrastructure such as Haifa port, trade, and investment has been on a steady upswing."