Barta`a Checkpoint: complaints about overcrowding in the morning continue
15:30-16:45
Barta’a checkpoint, 15:30: Hundreds of workers are returning from work in Israel and the Seamline Zone. They walk down the long sleeve
and stop at the kiosk to buy cakes and pastries for the weekend. They come back and tell us that on some mornings the checkpoint is packed and overcrowded and it takes them over an hour to get through and on others, it’s quick and orderly. Interesting to know the reason for the difference.
One man approaches us with two problems. 1. Since it’s now impossible to pay workers in cash, the employer transfers their monthly wages via the bank. The law stipulates that employers have to transfer the money between 1st and 10th of the month, but his employer transfers the money later. Where can he deal with the problem of withholding of wages? 2. He told us about the time when the employer (in Hadera) demanded that a Palestinian worker give him a work permit from the local employment bureau. The process of doing so was not clear to the worker, and neither is it clear to us what has to be done and why. We gave him the telephone numbers of Kav Le-Oved (the Workers’ Hotline) and a note with the phone numbers of Sylvia and her team.
Families with children cross over in both directions. Residents of East Barta’a are returning from errands in Jenin and a few workers are going to work the second shift in the Seamline Zone.
Tura checkpoint: It’s pouring with rain and only a few workers and a number of cars are returning to the West Bank.