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Liberation Struggle

She recalls that day, six years ago, when she traveled to work for the first time as an agricultural laborer. “I was 31 years old,” she says. “My husband, who worked in construction, had an accident and slipped a disc, and the contractor fired him, refusing to recognize the slipped disc as a work accident.”

“We were left without an income, and I was forced to seek work. This was seven months after I gave birth, and I was still breastfeeding. After a lot of searching, our neighbor, a contractor, agreed to take me to work. I was delighted that I would go to work and bring home an income – until I got into the van.”

We were like a herd of cows, she says of that journey and the many that followed. Fifteen women were squeezed into nine seats. That first day, the contractor took them to pick peaches. “At the end of the day, during the journey home, my skin was red from the fur of the peaches. I was full of milk because the baby hadn’t suckled all day. I was dehydrated because I hadn’t drunk enough, exhausted because we had worked like beasts of burden, and I didn’t even have a place to sit during the journey home.”

The following day Wafa began to see exploitation from close up. “I asked the women how much money we earned each day, and they said 85 shekels ($22) for eight hours, and sometimes unpaid overtime.”

Each day she discovered something else. “He didn’t give us wage slips. Whoever wanted a wage slip had to pay for it. There was no insurance. If you fell from the tree or ladder, or into a hole, it was your problem. At the end of the day the contractor counted up on his fingers and said he had brought ‘six and five.’ I asked the women what that meant, and they told me it was code between him and the owner of the orchard, because they paid men more for the same work.”

The contractor had a way of obtaining women for work. “He would go to a family with a lot of women and say to the elder brother, ‘I’ll find them work, I’ll look after them. Don’t send them to work in a factory.’ He would give the women confidence that they would not be sexually harassed, but exploit them via money instead.”

The most difficult thing, Wafa says, was the psychological aspect. “The contractor always moaned. ‘You didn’t work today, you weren’t much good today, I need to pay you from my own pocket, you need to make more effort.’ He never had a good word to say.”

“Women between the ages of 30 and 40 get up at 4 a.m. and work eight hours in agriculture, and they keep getting told they’re no good, and that if they don’t make more of an effort they’ll be replaced because there are thousands waiting in line. Then, from fear of being fired, they would make him coffee, buy him presents and give him extra hours for free.”

It wasn’t easy

As time passed, Wafa increasingly understood the extent of exploitation. “At some point I asked him, ‘You know there is a minimum wage law?’ He was surprised, said he was doing me a favor by bringing me to work, and told me not to talk about that with the others. I tried to talk to the other women too, but they silenced me immediately. ‘Do you know how many are looking for work?’ they asked. ‘Do you know how many are waiting in line?’ I understood they were quaking with fear. I was in a dilemma, because I didn’t want to demand money just for me, I wanted to do something together as a group.”

“When I got home from work, I would take a shower and breastfeed, and at the same time I began to think about how I had left the house at four in the morning and earned just 85 shekels. The pain of being exploited made me crazy, but I had no choice. That’s how it was for two years. I worked eight hours a day and earned 2,000 shekels ($515) a month and became more and more bad-tempered – until help arrived.”

One day, Wafa was contacted by representatives of the Workers Advice Center (WAC), an organization seeking to advance organized labor. “WAC knew us, because my husband had worked via them in construction, and they proposed that I work via them in agriculture. I decided to try. I told the contractor I was leaving, and began working via WAC. I worked without a contractor, I had a seat in the vehicle that took us to work, and WAC made sure the employer paid us at least the minimum wage according to the law of 20 shekels ($5.10) per hour. This was a turning point in my life. I felt I had changed from being exploited to being independent and productive.”

The transition was not smooth. “When I told the contractor that I was leaving, he met my children in the neighborhood and said to them, ‘Your mother, oh dear…’ He knew I was working via WAC and knew very well that I would earn 144 shekels ($37) per day instead of 85. He then threatened me openly, but then he regretted this and apologized, invited me to his home for a conversation, and asked me not to tell the women in the village about my new work conditions.”

“In the end he asked me if he could also work in WAC, and whether I could arrange it so that he would take care of the women. I told him that in WAC there was no need for babysitters. During the first few days I would call the WAC coordinator to ask if I really would get 144 shekels. I couldn’t believe it until I got my first wages. After I had got settled into the work I became a point of contact for the women in the village. They all came to my house as if I had opened an office. ‘Do us a favor, put us in contact with WAC.’ I heard that sentence every day. I slowly began to get them work, and whoever began working via WAC did not return to working via contractors.”

Nobody can make me go back

It is not easy for an Arab woman to leave the house, Wafa explains. To go to study or to work is even more difficult. “They even looked at me askance in my husband’s family when I told them I was seeking work. For them it was a kind of shame. They wanted me to sit at home, expecting my brother to bring a few pennies home and that somehow we’d manage. Luckily, my husband didn’t want to wait for charity.”

“In the house I grew up in, I got an independent education. Usually, girls are not encouraged to go out, but my father would say to my mother, ‘Let them go out, trust them.’ He thought in terms of education for financial independence. I graduated from high school. I was supposed to continue studying, but I quit because I got married through an arranged marriage at the age of 19 and my husband’s family didn’t like the idea of me studying.”

“Today I understand that it was actually the difficult financial circumstances that gave me a chance for freedom. I was forced to support the family. I got a taste of freedom and nobody can make me go back. They can’t tell me what to do now. When women ask me how they can persuade their husbands to let them work, I suggest an indirect approach. For example, they can say they will work just so that they can buy a fridge or a washing machine, or to pay for some class for the children. Later, faced with the wage slip, the husband will understand that in today’s society a family cannot survive with just one breadwinner.”

The next step was opening a WAC office in Kufr Qara. “In the village they saw this as a rebellion against the contractors, because many women signed up, and we at WAC also worked hard. We went from house to house, knocking on doors, we talked with the men, explained that organized work would not give the women a bad name – on the contrary, in this work she is protected and also earns well. And it worked. We recruited almost 5,000 women who went to work.”