Palestine
The Palestinian young man Yassin Al-Qassas did not expect that his first day at work in a bakery in Gaza would be the last, as he had to stop working in order to complete his treatment for second-degree burns to his face.
The bakery owner where Al-Qassas worked refused to take responsibility for his employee’s injury, and this prompted Al-Qassas to file an official complaint with the Ministry of Labour in Gaza, seeking financial compensation for the damage he sustained so that he could complete his medical treatment.
Difficult economic situation has for long prevailed in Gaza where poverty and unemployment rates are at a record high. Al-Qassas’s case is one of dozen other cases of people resorting to work in a bakery that lacks the minimum occupational safety basics. What was important for him was to get a job so he could support his family.
A quick tour the reporter made on some professional establishments in Gaza showed that in general, these lacked the minimum means of safety. For example, small factories that produce cleaning materials do not have proper ventilation or protective equipment for workers, and this causes burns and injuries to some staff. Similarly, blacksmith, carpentry workshops, and even bakeries are not geared to protect workers from various work hazards and accidents.
Al-Qassas says that the bakery where he worked did not have any safety or protection measures to deal with fire and or other types of injuries. Further, the bakery owner does not provide workers with health insurance, which prompted Yassin Al-Qassas to sue the owner.
According to Al-Qassas, he could have resorted to an amicable settlement despite his injury if the owner would have agreed to pay for his treatment or compensate him for burns he suffered to his face, but this was not the case as the bakery owner tried to extricate himself from any responsibility. “The injury occurred in November 2011 and the medical report concluded that there was a 10% medical disability that requires a financial compensation of 64,000 Israeli Shekels ($20,000) as estimated by the Ministry of Labour in Gaza.” Al-Qassas adds.
The reporter has obtained statistics that document injuries in the Palestinian work market from the inspection departments and the labour directorates in Gaza between 2018 and 2021. In 2018, there were 71 injuries in total, 56 in 2019, and 38 in 2020. The Ministry attributes this decline to the closures that had accompanied the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic. In 2021, the number of reported work injuries rose to 111.
According to the same statistical record, the total injuries recorded among females between 2018 and 2021 did not exceed three cases, which reflects the lower employment rate among females in Gaza.
The injuries recorded by the Palestinian Ministry of Labour vary. They include falling accidents, objects falling on people, workers exposed to extreme heat, electric shock, exposure to toxins and chemicals, burning and igniting explosive materials. The resulting injuries could be fractures, dislocations, sprains, shocks and other damages while some may include bruises, acute poisoning or severe wounds leading to amputations and others.
Jalal Hamadah was injured while working in one of his relatives’ workshops in 2021, which led to the amputation of two fingers in his left hand, as a result of handling a metal sawing machine.
Hamadah says that the factory where he worked provides occupational safety equipment, but the mechanical scissors he operates is very sharp, which caused the amputation of his two fingers.
What is remarkable for Hamadah was the way in which the compensation was calculated, as the amount of damage was estimated at 23% while he believes that he deserves a rate that exceeds 30% since he lost two fingers in addition to losing his job and that his injury has caused him a permanent damage.
Hamadah also stresses that this failure has nothing to do with his company, rather it is the decision of the insurance agency contracted to cover all the company employees. And while he wait to receive his compensation settlement, Hamadah is pursuing the treatment at his own expense despite losing his job that used to pay him a salary of 2000 Israeli Shekels per month ($600).
In other cases researched by the reporter, workers often get injured while handling dangerous machinery, even while wearing their protective.
The absence of some safety equipment due to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, plays a major role in these injuries as some protective equipment could be made unavailable in many cases due to the ban imposed by the Israeli occupation.
The head of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in the Gaza Strip Sami Al-Amsi admits that there is a major flaw in applying occupational safety measures for workers in various sectors. Safety and protection issues are usually left to the companies and their owners’ discretions.
Al-Amsi used the example of staff who work at gas and oil filling stations without any masks to protect them from toxic gases. The owners of these establishments, Al-Amsi says, usually use several pretexts for their failures, most commonly the Israeli blockade.
Al-Amsi believes that business owners clearly detract from the rights of workers, like paying them low wages and denying them basic occupational safety factors under the false excuse of the Israeli blockade, even though those establishment pay 17% taxes to the Israelis.
Al-Amsi estimates the rate of absence of occupational safety factors in the various establishments and institutions operating in Gaza at about 70%. The owners justify their negligence by the conditions currently prevailing in Gaza City.
In the first quarter of 2022, data recorded by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics showed a great disparity in the unemployment levels between the West Bank and Gaza. Unemployment is over 47% in Gaza, while it is 14% in the West Bank. Also, there were 378000 unemployed Palestinians in the first quarter of 2022, 244,000 of them in Gaza, and around 134,000 in the West Bank.
Hussein Habboush, the director of ‘Work Conditions Directorate’ at the General Department of Inspection of the Ministry of Labour in Gaza says that the statistics on work injuries obtained by the reporter between 2018 and 2021 cover only those events reported to the ministry by the employer. Habboush stresses that there are workers who do not report their injuries for personal reasons or because they are afraid to file cases in courts.
The Director of the Awareness and Guidance Department at the Ministry of Labour in Gaza, Raed Abu Shahla says that based on the 2021 statistics, only 1060 establishments have insured their employees, while 8955 establishments have no insurance provisions for their workers.
Abu Shahla points out that in 2021 alone there were over 1320 warnings and penalties issued against various businesses, 239 of them were issued against companies. This is in addition to issuing four penalties for four companies for their use of dangerous machinery, accompanied by a warning about the possible closure of their facilities. There were also eleven cases of recommendations issued to stop work facilities for their failure to fulfil certain work safety conditions, adding that “In 2021, we investigated 51 work-related accidents, and the General Department of Inspection calculated the due compensation for 83 work related injuries, as well as department inspectors carrying out 11,577 visits.”
In the face of this reality, regardless of the type of trade workers in Gaza are involved in, they are merely demanding to obtain their fair dues to continue supporting their families in light of the difficult living conditions. They are calling for the application of the legal procedures and occupational safety recommendations, so they could safeguard their right to financial compensation when accidents occur.
Gaza has been suffering from siege conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation, and workers like Jalal Hamadah and Yassin Al-Qassas as a result become victims several times over. The first is due to the weak legal procedures followed, which make them settle with the employer in the event of injury in most cases. The second is due to the poor application of labour laws, which forces them to accept salaries below the legally set minimum wages. This is in addition to the fact that employers do not adhere to the working hours stipulated by the law, let alone providing them with appropriate health insurance cover.
