I arrived in Tel Aviv 18th June 2015 and stayed in a hostel in the city that evening. The following day I travelled to the West Bank and checked into the guesthouse where I stayed for the remainder of my two-week visit. I undertook a research trip to Tel Aviv on the 22nd July to interview an academic at Tel Aviv University and the Director of Kav LaOved, an Israeli workers’ advice centre. I also made four trips to Ramallah in order to interview six Palestinian trade unionists and one NGO representative, as well as making one trip to Jericho to interview another Palestinian trade unionist. I returned to the UK during the night of 2nd July, and stayed in a hotel as it was too late to travel back through London. I have since carried out a further three interviews, by Skype, with trade unionists and NGO representatives in Israel and the West Bank.
My interviewees’ responses supported my research hypothesis that the application of Israeli labour law to Palestinian workers in the Israeli settlements and industrial zones is very weak, and that companies have responded to this by moving their operations into these areas. The interviews provided a wealth of information about the nature of labour law abuses, ranging from inadequate payment of the minimum wage, to an absence of health insurance, to a lack of holiday entitlement, and an abundance of discrimination. They also described the poor level of support that Palestinian workers receive in addressing these practices’: a result of the fact that they have intentionally been made ‘invisible’ from regulatory enforcement, trade unions and NGOs. In writing up my findings, I am using these interviews to explore how companies’ treatment of Palestinian workers is contributing to Palestinian worker insecurity, economic dependency on Israel and a weak Palestinian labour market.