Stanimir Vuglenov is a journalist at Bulgaria's leading daily 24 Hours who has been covering the case of beaten and threatened Bulgarian construction workers in the Israeli company, owned by Yitzhak Tsarfati. 24 Hours learnt about the beating cases at the company in the middle of 2002. A letter from Israel came, in which the problems were described in details. The letter was very worrying but it wasn't signed and that is why the information couldn't be made public. 24 Hours published their first article on the case on January 11th after a Tsarfati employee - Bulgarian victim, came to the Editorial Office of 24 Hours and guaranteed with his name for the information. Court ruled on Tuesday Yitzhak Tsarfati to stay under arrest till Friday, February 14. He was detained on Monday over abuse of workers in his company.
Mr Vuglenov spoke with Martina Iovcheva
Q: How many Bulgarians currently work at Tsarfati's company in Israel? What did they tell you?
A: About 600 people work there now. Over the last eight years some 10,000 Bulgarians have worked there. They go for two years, after that they come back and so on... The full sum that has been paid to Bulgarian employees through his company by Israeli entrepreneurs amounts to USD 100 M. Of course, this doesn't justify anyone for what happens at the company.
In general, there are many Romanians and Turkish people working in Israel. The Bulgarians are also many. However, recently many Chinese people come to work in Israel. As far as I know, the Chinese pay in China USD 10,000 to be able to go to to work in Israel. The Bulgarians pay between USD 500 and USD 1,000. The Romanians pay two to three times more than the Bulgarians to go to Israel. There, as far as I saw, all are working in similar conditions. It wouldn't be right to say that the Bulgarians are tortured more than the other workers. For all, no matter what their nationality is, the conditions are bad.
When I was in Israel, Mr. Tsarfati organized trips for the journalists to show us that everything was in order. He tried to take us to his best camps. In my opinion, even there the conditions there were not at all good. What Tsarfati showed us did not differ from the working conditions for construction workers in Bulgaria.
It was interesting that while we were making these tours with the people of Mr. Tsarfati, several employees started complaining that they have been beaten in front of him. It was very interesting to me that the employees were talking about the abuse in front of Tsarfati. They no longer feared. The first one to speak was Bulgarian with Turkish origin, Mimion, who complained that he was very sick in the summer and for three days he was asking to be taken to hospital but he wasn't allowed to leave the camp by the balabais - the people who are responsible for the workers. All balabais are Bulgarians.
Q: Some of these balabais are also under arrest, aren't they?
A: As far as we know, three more Bulgarians are under arrest and most probably they are balabais.
Q: You talked over the phone yesterday with the lawyer of Mr. Tsarfati. What did he tell you?
A: He underlined that there were no accusations of beating against Tsarfati. From the court case on Tuesday, it emerged that Tsarfati is actually suspected of not paying salaries, problems with the medical insurances and the hiring the employees. As for the three other people under arrest, they are accused of beating.
Q: You spent some time with Mr. Tsarfati. What is his version?
A: His version is that everything is provoked by his competitors. He said that he wasn't guilty and that there was no violence in his companies. He also said that he paid on time and many of the employees come for second and third time.
I must say that the conditions are not at all good. I saw the best and worst conditions in his camps. The conditions in the worst camps, are actually inhuman. I saw such terrible conditions in a camp in Jerusalem.
It is true that there is interference from competitors. Most of the recent troubles of Mr. Tsarfati have been provoked by his competitors and this cannot be denied. However, I must say that in case that everything was in order and there was no violence and he was a loyal employer, no competition could harm his business. His competitors now take advantage of the situation.
Q: Is the problem only in Tsarfati's company or there is also a problem with the intermediaries in Bulgaria?
A: For me, they are in the same boat - the Bulgarian and the Israeli intermediaries. Most probably, the Bulgarian intermediaries take not accounted for money from the workers. This cannot be proven since they do not issue a document for this money. The employee who fights for survival in Bulgaria prefers to find some money to pay. The problem is that the intermediaries do not return this money to the hired employees in spite of the fact that they say that this is a guarantee that will be returned. No one has so far said that the money was returned.
On the other hand, in Israel, several salaries are detained by the employer since he is obliged to pay a guarantee that the worker is going to work with his company and will not escape to another job.
The truth is that many of the Bulgarian employees cheat. The Israeli employer has to pay a guarantee for them. And the workers are obliged to return this guarantee in some way. Many prefer to go to another job where they get much higher salary without paying such guarantee.
The general problem is that the working force in Israel is not enough and that is why foreigners are being hired. On the other hand, since there is a financial crisis in Israel, the society has bad attitude towards the foreign workers since the Israeli think that the foreigners take their jobs. That is why special quotas are introduced, which are not enough. For example, Israel needs 50,000 construction workers but the government fixes a quota of only 30,000. Some companies in Israel that do not have permits to bring employees from abroad start "to steal" from the other companies, which have permits and create problems for them. I suppose that there was such a problem at Tsarfati's company and he introduced a large number of these measures to preserve his business. However, things went too far.
I am prone to think that Mr. Tsarfati didn't beat or torture workers. It is not logical that he would ruin his business on his own. What I saw was that there was no Bulgarian beaten by Israeli. There were Bulgarians beaten up by Bulgarians.
However, if the balabais did not have the full support of the management, it wouldn't be possible 12 people to beat 600.
Q: Do you think Mr. Tsarfati will be convicted?
A: In my opinion, the Israeli legislation is much more strict than the Bulgarian one. This time, a huge scandal broke, between the two countries also. You know that there is a check of the foreign and social ministries there. The media in Israel cover the scandal also. I think that this time he will be convicted.
However, as far as I know, some two years and a half ago, Mr. Tsarfati was under arrest for three days and was again charged with abuse over workers. However, he was released then. That shows that the Israeli legislation also has some problems.
Send to Kindle
