The Organization of the Cleaning Workers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev as a Case Study for Dealing with Institutionalized Multi-Dimensional OppressionOrna Amos, Tal Baharav (*)March 2011Published in Daniel Mishori and Anat Ma'or (Eds): Harmful Employment and Degrading EmploymentAbstract: This article concerns the issue of the oppression of cleaning workers as a result of the contractual employment pattern, customary in higher education institutions in particular and in the public sector in Israel in general. The article shall address the issue of oppression from different aspects and on different levels, including class, personal, gender and political oppression. The article depicts the chain of events that brought to the organization of the cleaning workers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the difficulties stemming from the various fields of oppression, and the ways in which the organization's activists and workers have overcome these barriers.  The fluctuations in Israeli economy and society have created, over the past decades, considerable changes in the labor market in Israel. One of the most common forms of employment in Israel's labor market is that of contractual employment. This type of employment constitutes a breach in the workers' defenses, and is designed to provide temporary workers who are not tied in labor relations to their workplace and fill in for temporarily missing workers, or who are not related to the continuous, everyday activity of the institution in which they are placed by the contractor. In recent years, there has been an expansion of the contractual employment pattern that includes a triad employment mechanism, in which three parties are involved: the workers, the contractor, and the organization that orders the work. In this indirect form of employment, the worker's work contract is signed with the contractor, and the contractor is the one who pays the worker's fee and the rest of the employer's payments. The employer in practice pays the contractor a fee on which the parties have agreed in advance. During the contract period, the worker is at the user's disposal and is under their supervision, even though formally he is employed by the contractor (Nadiv, 2005).Originally, outsourcing was meant to transfer certain operations from inside the organization to companies specializing in various functions, such as cleaning; this as part of a trend to make organizations "flat" and "slim", achieving maximum managerial flexibility via a minimal management staff, and enabling the organization to prepare for situations of uncertainty, for temporal projects and for changes in needs and in the extent of work (Ben Israel 1999; Glin 1999). Today, these employment patterns serve to lower wages and to circumvent limitations of regularities and positions.  This way, under cover of managerial flexibility and progress, employers have lowered the price of their expenses, with the aid and encouragement of the different governments, at the expense of the workers. The pattern of

contractual employment has become a profitable "business" in the short run, for all parties - except for the workers themselves.Most contract workers are mainly employed in safeguarding and security, cleaning, catering, call centers, clerical work and typing, and most earn minimum wage. The competition in the capitalist market results in a reality of loss contracts, and a brutal intent on efficiency, in which the contractor's profit margin might, allegedly, be small; thus the incentive for exploitation and abuse of the workers is built into the system.  With the lack of supervision and protection of the work force from the process of exploitation, the value of work is reduced to the humane minimum. This is due to the fact that this way everybody gains except for the workers themselves. Those employed in this market come mainly from weakened populations, amongst which are many women, new members of the labor market, young workers, new immigrants or Arabs, and those with an education of 12 years and under. In other words, populations which are easier to exploit, abuse, and impose practices of power upon. While in European countries the contract workers constitute less than one percent of the employees in the market, in Israel their rate reaches approximately twenty percent. Moreover, this pattern of employment is customary not only in commercial companies: forty five percent of the contract workers in Israel are employed in the public sector, and infringement of their rights is extremely prevalent even when the employer is the government and its extensions or branches. In cases in which the employer is public, we find the government wearing two hats — both that of the employer and that of the regulator, who is supposed to protect the rights of the employees, stated in the law. In light of this, there is no wonder that the government prefers the economical considerations as an employer (Thager, 2006).In Israel, therefore, a situation is formed in which there is no one single employment market for all, but two coexisting markets of employment: one of abundance employment, characterized by high wages, high professional and social status, prospects for development and beneficiary terms; the other - an employment market of poverty, situated at the bottom of the social prestige ladder and including works that do not provide economic and employment security (Mahut, 2008).It should be noted that these processes did not evolve in a vacuum. The incorporation of Israel in the capitalist globalization has brought about the adoption of management methods, the most important of which: reduction of the price of labor. Meaning: an increase in the number of employees employed for a low wage or in part-time jobs, mostly female workers (Davidi, 2003). On the global level, this concerns the release of the capital from its bonds which enables businesses to employ employees in various countries and decrease the bargaining capacity of salaried employees. In this process, multinational corporations have an influence more than ever on the local economy, many organizations are going through processes of change, and the demand for economic efficiency grows stronger, while simultaneously values such as organized work and social solidarity are swept aside. More than that, mobilization of workers has become

commonplace, the state promotes procedures of privatization of public services in the name of economic efficiency (Ben Israel, 2002; Gross, 2000).  The economic changes have brought about a strengthening of the inequality among different types of workers in Israel, have created offensive employment patterns, have brought about a considerable decrease in the protection of workers' rights, and have raised the risk for exploitation of weakened workers. It seems that in many cases, 'privatization' or 'streamlining' are not the main goal, as is the opportunity embedded in them for the state or organizations, to shirk responsibility for the terms of employment of many workers in the public and private sector, which condemns them to an employment of poverty. This market of poverty employment creates various plains of oppression, which we shall characterize later on, and mounts difficulties for attempts to change these employment patterns. One cannot impose these processes without the express consent or acquiescence from the existing workers' organizations, from the 'Histadrut' to workers' committees that have "accepted" the dictates of the capital and of globalization, and cannot offer a proper alternative to the challenges of the broadside on the workers and their status, in the figure of new forms of employment.        The organization process of the cleaning workers at the Ben-Gurion UniversityUniversities also, which in Israel are public (financed and supervised by the state), have become a part of the "new" forms of employment, among other things, as a result of the government's dictates. This trend, which had begun approximately two decades ago, is expressed in many ways: the employment of "visiting-professors" instead of faculty, employment of workers in "research funds" or "projects", instead of faculty. The aim is clear: to divide the workers (from the senior professor to the cleaning worker), into groups growing smaller and smaller, and thus to dismantle their strength, their bargaining power, and gradually, continuously lower their wage. This policy, as aforementioned, is dictated "top-down" from the government, and it goes on unabated over the past two decades. In February 2011, the council for higher education has addressed the universities in a request that they start planning and implementing tactics of "streamlining and economizing still this year". For this purpose, the council's committee for planning and budgeting (Vatat) will allocate a budget of up to NIS 75 million ("Ha'aretz", 17.02.11)."The council for higher education has suggested that the universities examine several propositions for becoming more efficient, including reduction in the scope of administrative staff' employees or in their salary, and the transference of certain positions to outsourcing companies".In this manner, the management of the Ben-Gurion University has decided to change the method of the cleaning workers' employment from direct employment to employment via contractors, with the purpose of saving and becoming more efficient economically. Since the change in the method of employment until 2009, the cleaning workers at the Ben-Gurion University were employed in relations of exploitation, robbery and intimidation, on a systematic, daily basis.

In 2007, over 250 cleaning workers were working at the University, for two different contractor companies. From analyzing the workers' demographic data, it was found that over 85% of them reside in the Negev; the vast majority was immigrants from the former USSR, a minority is immigrants of the Ethiopian ethnic group, and another group of immigrants from Latin America; most are of low socio-economic status, and among them, many are sole providers and single mothers, living in the Negev. These characteristics clearly show that these workers are of a vulnerable population, in need of protection. In another study concerning this subject, similar characteristics were found (Pechter et al., 2005; Ab'hasra, Becker and Cohen, 2006; Hendels, 2004).The employment of the cleaning workers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, up until 2007, was characterized by a vast majority employed alternately through two contractor companies, for 5-20 years, mostly being employed in a part-time job (4-6 hours of work per day). The common pattern of employment in 2007 was dismissal every nine months and return to the same position at the end of the summer vacation, a situation causing severe damage to job sequence and security and preventing entitlement to a severance package. In addition, for most of the workers there was no accumulation of social rights, such as pension provision, severance pay and social security payments, seniority supplement or days of convalescence. Furthermore, they were regularly robbed of days of vacation, travel expenses, sick days and holidays. In addition, there were exploitation and abuse that included imposing arbitrary fines due to the quality of cleanliness or lack of cleanliness; charging payments for work robes; systematic deductions of work hours done in practice from the pay slip; collection of "gift fees" through the pay slip, without giving a holiday gift, or giving a gift the cost of which differs from the sum charged from the workers. Similarly, the workers were not given rights to which they are entitled by law (expansion order for the cleaning industry): work after painting and repairs, and supplement for work in medical labs.    At the beginning of 2005, students from the Tzach organization (a group of students studying at the Ben-Gurion University and working together for social justice) and professors from the University opened a struggle against these harmful employment conditions. The pressure put on the University has led the University, in 2007, to harden its stance with regards to the contractors having to pay the workers all of the social benefits to which they were entitled by law. In light of the University's demand from the contractors that they act lawfully, one of the contractors ("Eitan Shamir Ltd.") decided in the summer of 2008 to fire all 150 workers under his responsibility, claiming that the University did not pay him enough money in order to hire them lawfully. These dismissals were the turning point in the struggle for the rights of the  cleaning workers at the University. The lives of those who received dismissal letters were shattered, and facing the fear of dismissal and the sense of insult, they went on a protest strike in front of the management offices of the University. The striking workers were joined by students and professors, as well as other organizations that joined the coalition, the purpose of which was to protect and safeguard the

organization process, and to meet the needs of this process. The organizations' coalition established at the University included the Tzach organization, The Forum for Social Justice at the Department of Social Work, Itach-Ma'aki - Lawyers for Social Justice, Shatil (support and consultation services for organizations of social change), The Forum for the Protection of Higher Education and the Organization of Junior Academic Staff. The two largest organized groups of workers were prominent in their absence, The Workers Council of the Technical and Administrative Staff, unionized in the Histadrut, and The Organization of the Senior Academic Staff. During the strike, a committee of cleaning workers, first of its kind in Israel, began to consolidate. In light of the fired workers' strike, and the public pressure put on the University by the partners to the struggle, the University's management intervened and committed to the workers, that they would be returned to their jobs and that their rights would not be infringed. Petitions made by students and professors to the University's management, to try and find an alternative solution for the workers' forlorn situation (such as their absorption into the University's logistics department, or the establishment of a workers' cooperative accompanied by professors and students) have failed. The University renewed the contracts with the contractors, raised the hourly wage, stopped the dismissal of workers every nine months, appointed an ombudsman for the workers on behalf of the University, and assured a mechanism for supervision over payrolls, and  payment of some of the workers' social rights has begun. This way, the contractors received more for every hour of cleaning, the workers' payrolls included many more rights clauses, but the hurtful method of employment continued, and alongside the achievements, new phenomena appeared: new forms of oppression.    During the strike, a process of unionizing in Ko'ach La'ovdim has begun. This process opened a new era, in which the workers appointed a temporary committee, which included nine female workers and one male worker. After the workers' return to work, the nine workers dropped out, and one representative remained of the temporary committee. The drop-out of the nine workers was the first sign of fear, which originates in the long-lasting oppression. The continuous experience of oppression and exploitation was evident everywhere and in every worker we met. The oppression that was reported by the workers stemmed directly from the contractor and his representative in the field, through the University's logistics department, or through the representative of the Histadrut in the Negev. Workers reported that when they reported violations of rights to the Histadrut, they were immediately fired the very next day, and were threatened that they would not find another job in the Negev. The constant fear amongst the workers was strongly felt when most of the workers refused to talk to students or professors about their manner of employment or their social rights. The long-lasting fear and oppression paralyzed and obstructed, at this phase, the possibility to unionize.From the day of the workers' return to the cleaning work, under the same contractors, unofficial pressures were put on to prevent their unionizing. As a result, out of the ten workers that stood up to be a temporary workers'

committee, only one remained after a single week. All other workers testified that there were threats and pressure that they would be dismissed if they take part in the workers' organization. During the academic year 2008-2009, this representative has struggled, with the help of the supporting bodies, for his role as the committee's chairman. The unofficial harassments included his transference from his job: from a job in distribution of detergents, which is considered physically easier and enables movement, to actual cleaning, and later on an increase of the work load, relocation to a workplace isolated from the central campus and separated from the workers, with whom he had formed acquaintances and work relations, and daily abuse such as humiliating and blunt attitude, threats and intimidations from the contractor's representative. These actions were taken as part of an attempt to make him resign of himself, and later on he even received a letter of dismissal. A vast and sharp protest on the part of the coalition's organizations, other workers' committees in the campus and the workers, prevented his dismissal, and the representative was brought back to work after the intervention of the University - though with a further worsening of his conditions. His return to work was a constitutive event, of significance to the continuance of the organization. The message was clear - "you do not fire a unionizing worker". This, in accordance with "the law for the protection of the establishers of workers' committees and their members" legislated by Member of the Knesset, Tamar Gozanski in 2001, which protects the right of unionization of the workers and protects those who unionize from being dismissed by the employers. This achievement somewhat loosened the chains of fear and paralysis, and enabled a more tangible progress of the workers' organization.The workers refused to become members of the Histadrut, claiming that in the past some of them complained to the Histadrut representative, and were rebuked by the contractor the following day, were called to a clarification conversation and sometimes even fired - even though a fee to the Histadrut was deducted from their salaries, and in light of the Histadrut's lack of involvement in the ongoing violations of their employment terms. Therefore, a handful of workers decided to unionize in "Ko'ach La'ovdim - a Democratic Workers' Organization" that aims to serve as a democratic alternative to the workers' organizations in Israel (/http://workers.org.il), and in time, became the representative organization of the cleaning workers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Despite the return of the representative to work, the workers were still afraid. The obstacles we encountered in the process were hard and exhausting, the workers of the University and the contractors refused to accept the workers' organization in general, and their unionization in Ko'ach La'ovdim specifically. The workers, weakened and oppressed for years, were dealing with complicated pressures and threats. Only an entire year later, the workers of "Eitan Shamir Ltd." succeeded to unionize.After approximately 18 months the mission was completed - the workers of one contractor were unionized. As part of the unionizing process, democratic elections were held for a permanent representation of the

workers. This exciting event was also accompanied by many difficulties, since workers who filed nomination faced explicit threats from the employer. But all the threats and attempts of harassment were unsuccessful, and eventually, 16 workers filed nomination. Out of these, a committee of cleaning workers was elected for the first time, including seven representatives. To the satisfaction of all partners, the event was a catalyst for the joining and unionizing of some of the workers of the "Notrey Zion" Company (the other contractor company at the University). After the election of the committee, its members were given training for their role by an advisor from Shatil, and with the accompaniment of a student of social work from the Forum for Social Justice at the Social Work Department, and the activists of Ko'ach La'ovdim. The committee began organizing various activities for enhancing the acquaintance and solidarity among the workers, such as trips and parties, and took actions to alleviate exploitation through the collection of complaints from the workers. In addition, the committee demanded a negotiation with the contractors about the existing violation of rights and non-fulfillment of employment laws to their fullest. During the summer of 2009, there was a deterioration in the employment status of the workers, due to steps taken by the University. The University's management cut back 30-40% of the work hours allocated to the contractors. Indeed, the University's management simultaneously stated that it would also cut back on the demands, but de-facto, the work grew more and more, with the adding of two new research buildings to the University. This move had created unthinkable workloads, which affect the workers to this day, following the cutbacks and the expansion of the requirements from the workers left. The workers are forced to clean every day 1.5 times and even double what they cleaned in the past, with the same amount of hours or less. The allotment of daily work hours of every worker was reduced from 4-6 hours to 3-4 hours. There is no wonder that the workers report a sense of stress and anxiety "to succeed cleaning on time". Today, only 210 cleaning workers are employed at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. These workers, who have chosen to go out to the labor market and provide for themselves and for their families, earn, on average, a wage of approximately NIS 1,500 per month, get up every day at 04:30 am, and most times continue to a second and third job. These workers, who have been cleaning the University for the past five, ten, fifteen and even twenty years, are cracking under the burden of the physical work.In the summer of 2010, a new committee was elected, currently consisting of 7 workers. These days, the committee is holding negotiations with the contractors towards signing a collective agreement. On the day of the elections, an event took place with many participants, in which the workers called out on stage for the president of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Professor Rivka Carmi, to hire them directly. Simultaneously, the workers distributed a petition that was presented to the President at the end of the event, signed by over 3,500 people, while professors and students distributed a position paper that was presented to the board of

trustees and to University workers. The President avoided a direct response to the request to hire the cleaning workers by direct employment. These days, January 2011, we are occupied with the establishment of a coalition for direct employment in higher education institutes in Israel. The coalition includes: representatives of the organizations of workers in universities and colleges, representatives from the Ko'ach La'ovdim organization, representation of student associations in the country, representatives of the national committees of the senior and junior academic staff, social organizations such as: Tzach, Itach-Ma'aki, Shatil, The Social Movement of Israel and others. This coalition will lead a fierce and determined social struggle, which aim is, firstly, direct employment of the cleaning workers, and later on, all other contract workers within its limits.On the sources of oppressionWhat can be learned from the organization attempt of the cleaning workers at The Ben-Gurion University? The main argument of this article is that the cleaning workers employed via contractors in universities, are under continuous oppression. The source of this oppression is in the economic and social arrangements and power structures of capitalism, which give power and fortitude to employers while depriving power from a large group of women. We term this deprivation of power 'oppression', and distinguish between different aspects and expressions of this oppression: on the class, political, gender and individual levels, this as a fundamental and basic feature of these workers' status as contract workers, as opposed to the status of a worker in direct employment- i.e. the "normal" exploitation of workers.This oppression has several sources. The first is the oppression of the human dimension of the worker. This oppression is expressed in the deprivation of the power, the needs, the interests, and the free will, which posits the workers as objects or as a commodity, as currency. Their status as contract workers reinforces this objectification. The deprivation of power that accompanies the objectification is done in a direct and in an indirect manner, both through the law and through practices that evade the law. Objectification, turning the woman into an object, is not static, but creates a bidirectional movement of constant empowerment and weakening: strengthening of the employer's sense of power, and on the opposite side, weakening of the worker and her disciplining, belittling, negation of her independence and erasure of her sense of self value. A worker who has gone through this process is a worker who is placed in an arbitrary and undermining occupational space (Mahut, 2008). The objectification happens during the process of commodification[1] of their work, while disregarding the human factor behind it. As expressed by one of the human resources managers in the public sector: "let the contractor do the work with little elves, with robots, with fairies and magicians. I do not care" (Mahut, 2008). Well, the "little elves, the "robots", the "fairies" and the "magicians" are real people. The contractual employment pattern was created in an attempt to give the employer all of the advantages and benefits that can be produced from the labor of real workers. This, while

neutering the personal and humane dimensions of the work relations, and while shirking the duties and burdens embedded in employing human beings. In the new organizational culture, the contract workers constitute "services" or "human resource services", and the university has turned from an "employer" to a "user" (Bauman, 2002). This commodification has a direct impact on the workers' sense of belonging: their indirect employment by the University is equivalent to the statement "you do not belong", "you work for us - but not with us", or "at the university- but not by it". This is not just a statement but a true policy, a policy of "non-belongingness" and of not taking responsibility. The indirect employment is an exertion of political power on the workers, who are left exposed and without the protection of the University. Due to this policy, the workers are concurrently present and not present at the university, workers from the inside but from the outside: included yet excluded (Yanai, cited from the position paper "From Contract Workers to Workers of Equal Status", 2010, p. 13).Issues of inclusion and exclusion, of belongingness and non-belongingness, of recognition and non-recognition - are not just theoretical questions; they are questions of life, of the life we imagine for ourselves and for others in our workplace, life patterns that become possible for us and for others in our workplace. The struggle for belongingness and recognition is a struggle for a possible fair life. "What is important", say the workers, "is that there is an appreciation of what we do and respect for us as human beings"[2] (Rozen and Pine, 2010). This statement asks for recognition in them as human beings. Receiving recognition by others is an existential necessity, and it is a prerequisite for a sense of self and selfhood. One who is deprived of this recognition, who had once experienced non-recognition, had also experienced a blow to the self and to her sense of self value (Benjamin, 1988). Non-recognition of the cleaning workers as part of the University's workers community is a means of controlling the workers, of appropriating their labor while abandoning them as human beings. In the terms of Giorgio Agamben (2003), the cleaning workers turn into abandoned workers, workers that do not belong — and at the same time belong to those who do not belong, to those who do not have a place. Thus, without representation and without a voice, they are exposed to symbolic violence and to real violence, and become without a status and are subordinated socially, economically and psychologically. There is a need, therefore, for a twofold recognition: (1) recognition in the workers as belonging, and (2) recognition in that the rules of belongingness (the method of employment) on the one hand, and feelings of belongingness on the other hand, are inter-dependant factors. In this manner, recognition and belongingness become two variables that are co-dependant in a double association, one side of which is recognition in the worker, and the other - understanding that non-recognition means exploitation and abandonment of the worker (Yanai, 2010, position paper, p. 13).The second type of oppression is the class oppression, usually defined as "economic". This oppression relates to the damage to the

contract workers' free work, as they are deprived of a contractual statement of their work terms and their realization of some of the basic rights of workers in a democratic society. Their work is not free work, as they do not have any status in determining its terms, and the user of their work does not have any binding contract with them, or an employer's responsibility towards them (position paper, From Contract Workers to Workers of Equal Status, 2010, p. 13).Cleaning workers are part of a category of women, employed in poverty employment, a term first defined in a position paper of the Mahut Center (Mahut, 2008). Part of the definition of poverty employment includes: lack of job security, harsh attitude, unexpected dismissals, unclear requirements, reinforcement of control mechanisms, arbitrary decisions, reduction of freedom, constant uncertainty and doubt with regards to the continuance of the work, as well as disconnection from support networks of connections, lack of protection from the community and non-belonging to it. The wage in poverty employment does not give them real purchasing power, cannot remove them from the cycle of poverty, and cannot assure their future as workers who earn in dignity. The workers are in patriarchic social relations with the employer - the contractor, who is the driving force of their employment mechanism. In this situation, the workers do not succeed in surviving without relinquishing their rights and under the dreadful threat that should they say anything, they will lose their workplace (Dahan-Calev, in: 'From Contract Workers to Workers of Equal Status, 2010). Different writers have addressed the workers' limitedness in safeguarding their rights through the labor courts. From the field it is seen that many workers are not aware of their rights at all. The main reason for this is the lack of accessibility of the workers to clear, reliable information about laws of employment, in a language understandable to them, especially due to lack of fluency in Hebrew, and sometimes because of insufficient education. Moreover, it was found that even workers who were conscious, even partially, of the violation of their rights, tended not to file a legal claim to fulfill their rights. Some have expressed a concern that if they file a lawsuit against their employer, he would harass them, or even fire them. Others have expressed a concern that they would be labeled as "troublemakers" and that other employers also would not agree to hire them for that. In addition, the workers do not see any point in looking into their rights, because they think that knowing their rights or filing a lawsuit to the courts would not change their situation. The view according to which a legal lawsuit is not effective or even dangerous, creates a psychological barrier from filing a claim, and makes many workers accept the violation of their rights and submissively accept their situation (Abhasra, Becker and Cohen, 2006). The workers' weakness very much enhances the possibility and the temptation of the employer to take advantage of them, amongst other things out of a knowing that they would find it very difficult to stand up for their legal rights, due to their limited accessibility to legal aid (Benish and Zarfati, 2008).In addition, one cannot ignore gender oppression. While within the university's walls, there are many women, who believe in womanly

sisterhood and in feminism, and in cooperation among women for the advancement of equality and women empowerment, these women intellectuals are mostly of hegemonic social groups, and their economic status tends to be good. On the opposite end, at the bottom of the ladder, are women who clean the campus corridors as transparent figures; contractors hire them with no rights and under a constant threat of dismissal.These barriers have a number of reasons and explanations, at the base of which is the central hypothesis that the economic oppression - where workers have no choice but to agree to work in poverty employment in disadvantageous conditions - and the ongoing personal oppression, create a wide basis for the development of another form of oppression: the political oppression, or as defined by Cohen (2010), from the leadership of Ko'ach La'ovdim, "learnt political helplessness". This term addresses the psychological phenomenon which occurs when a person who suffers hard experiences, on which he has no control, for a long period of time, develops a sort of distinct depression - weakness and apathy, resulting from internalizing the message that he is helpless. Learnt political helplessness begins even closer to the person himself - in the constant learning that his power to influence his life is very limited in most life domains. This phenomenon is a direct product of the control mechanisms in the labor market, which grow more and more sophisticated and leave the individual much less real freedom and control over his life. Cohen indicates in his article that the basis for a process of change in this experience begins in the creation of success-oriented experiences in growing circles, and re-consolidation of a sense of control of reality, while re-obtaining the faith and the experience of an ability to change within these expanding circles. Achievements in a workers' struggle constitute such an empowering experience, and are an important phase in the process of liberation from the patterns of oppression.On Empowerment and UnionizingAccording to this guiding principle, we were required to act in various ways in order to enable beneficent conditions for the organization of the workers, and while doing so overcome the violent control mechanisms and the fear and paralysis that they create among the workers. Several assumptions have delineated the action of unionization. The first assumption is that those in power would not easily give up their status and therefore in order to succeed in the struggle, there is a need to utilize unconventional and even extreme methods of action, to build an opposing power that would enable negotiations. The belief that guided our path was that it is possible to take action for changing power relations in society, between the "have-nots", meaning weakened and discriminated groups, and the "haves", meaning the capitalists and their representatives in the political system, who create and perpetuate poverty (Alinsky, 1971). Freire (1981) wrote in his book, "The Pedagogy of the Oppressed", that the only way in which members of weakened and oppressed groups can be empowered and gain political power is by direct involvement in a struggle against harmful institutions and capitalists, and through experiencing conflict.

The second assumption required a deep understanding and empathy to the unique characteristics of the lives of people who live in poverty and workers in poverty employment. The latter are in a daily battle for survival that makes the process of organization extremely difficult, since it concerns an existential income on which their lives and the lives of their family depend. The third assumption was that one should regard the process as a process based on progress and withdrawal. A process in which oppression, in the image of fear, hinders the organization, and in parallel to it, the aspiration for change advances the process. All this while meticulously examining the group and the workers' capability to be increasingly independent. From these assumptions, we began to create conditions that would enable empowerment of the workers  both individual and collective empowerment (Sadan, 1999).In the process of empowerment of the workers, we identified six psychological transitions, which characterize individuals and groups in the process of organization for the advancement of rights. These six transitions include: transition from despair to hope, from individual to group, from concern for oneself to solidarity, from helplessness to a sense of competence, from passiveness to activeness, and from a sense of oppression to a sense of control and power. In order to enable these transitions, we took actions primarily based on building rapport and trust with the workers. The establishment of personal relations had, and still has, a considerable significance in mobilizing them to action. We had to build rapport as an appropriate substitute for the unreliable relations characterizing their work lives. Kris Rondeau and Gladys McKenzie are two organizers, who began to organize about 6,600 workers, clerks and technical workers, in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Their organization was done in one of the most prestigious private universities in the United States, and in one of the largest public universities in the country. Rondeau and McKenzie relate to this way as a way based on the belief that people change being in relationships, and not being isolated. Rondeau and McKenzie are not just organizers who happen to be women. Their way of organization reflects their feminism and their understanding of women's lives. They understand the importance that most women attribute to maintaining and forming relations. They define the process as having a regular relation with every person who works in the place, and devotion to this relation throughout the process: at the beginning they start to support the union; later on they develop a sense of cooperativeness, they know where to turn to when they encounter a problem; next they become activists; they are able to organize co-workers and make strategic decisions. Various important changes occur amongst the members, these changes never stop. Every person needs time and a lot of information in order to decide on a true connection to a union.  But he needs not only information - they call it "heart and mind". This means that what workers need is to be emotionally connected to the union, to really know it. They need to care about it. Joining a union is an action that testifies to the personal courage of the joiner. The workers must see the organization, be exposed to it. They have to see the basic

practical expressions of the union, in order to understand that the members in the union are like them. They need to get used to the idea that ordinary people can build strong organizations (Oppenheim, 1991/2).In addition to the establishment of rapport, we acted according to the method of reaching out, meaning we went out to talk to the workers, in their place and time of work, out of a perspective of maximizing accessibility to the field of action. We minimized the use of papers (Oppenheim, 1991/2), and if we chose to do so, we did it in a low dosage and even then, the papers were translated into various languages and we served them while explaining and sharpening the main message in them. Rondeau and McKenzie describe this in the following way: "we are deterred by the idea that workers should view the organization as a third party. Distribution of a lot of written material tends to promote this image. This is not to say that one should never use written material at all - assume you have a work force of 10,000 workers; one must use written material, but one should be careful and control this urge".Two elements were corner-stones in the everyday practice. The first was inclusive work and the second was development of solidarity (Tait, 2005). McKenzie writes on the organization of the clerical and technical workers in the universities: "we acted very seriously on the matter of organizing every single worker. We were determined not to miss anyone. Every person deserves to be respected by us. Every person deserves being treated as a human being and not as an amorphous picture to be addressed in one big campaign" (Oppenheim, 1991/2). In this context, we also held group meetings adapted to the workers' culture, in which we dealt with concepts and basic skills such as reading a paycheck, understanding the concept of organization and its importance, conversations about fear and worries that accompany the organization, the purpose and significance of a representative committee, etc. In addition, we organized social activities like toasts on holidays, parties and trips, to enable the development of a sense of belonging to a group, and as a tool for the development of solidarity amongst the workers. Another method of work was based on the inclusive perspective, which essentially means addressing the whole of the worker's life and not just the occupational field. For example, the legal consultation given by the Itach-Ma'aki organization offers aid in all hardships in the fulfillment of women's rights. Also, the activists who assisted in the process related to the workers and to events in their lives, such as: death and family grief, medical problems, etc. In addition to the use of these instruments, we needed quite a few legal tools, for instance, against threats from the representative of the contractor "Eitan Shamir". Legal actions were taken informing her of the penalties stated in the law for the disruption of a workers' organization. Also, we used many protest tools, such as demonstrations, intensive work with the media, and continuously maintaining public consciousness, inside and outside the university, the main target of which was keeping and protecting the process of organization.From contract work to direct employment

Despite the oppression, the exploitation and the harmful conditions of employment, the cleaning workers feel committed to the institution they clean in diligence, efficiency and devotion for many years. The workers' committee, like the workers themselves, believes that direct employment is the right way to solve the problem of hurtful employment in the long term. Harsh criticism was raised among intellectuals and social activists, among the heads of workers' committees in universities and among students, on the mere pattern of contractual employment. The main criticism relates to the moral stain on higher education institutions, which are perceived as agents of injustice, exploitation and abuse, and as agents of social destruction, causing the labor market to deteriorate from a free, civic market into a wild site of all-out war. In the view of the critics, this carrying on is extremely unacceptable in higher education institutions, which are dedicated to research and science. This dedication is meant to be possible only in the framework of a liberal community, with values of liberty, including freedom of speech, thought and creation - values of liberty without which knowledge cannot flourish. A university that grants academic liberties to its professors, and liberties of expression and learning to its students - but deteriorates its workers de-facto to losing their rights, to work which is not free, and to becoming enslaved to masters-contractors — is not a liberal community, but rather a school for oppression and abuse. Its students would also soon notice that its outspoken pretenses are not backed up by its behavior de-facto towards its own workers (From Contract Workers to Workers of Equal Status, 2010, p. 13). Yanai, in 'From Contract Workers to Workers of Equal Status, 2010' in a position paper calling to directly employ the cleaning workers at Ben-Gurion, claims that one should not distinguish non-recognition from exploitation and oppression, since "human dignity" and the "dignity of the institution" are interrelated, and both are related to rules of employment. The struggle for recognition and belonging is also a struggle for economical and societal justice, and they should go hand in hand (Olson, 2008). The economic considerations can also be easily refuted with regards to two main reasons. The first addresses the justification given to outsourcing and focuses on the importance of expertise. In universities, for example, it is unreasonable to operate in a direct manner services of sewage cleaning or amplification for events, which are one-time and not permanent services, domains of expertise ordered every once in a while, and that are not required on a daily basis in the university. However, in the field of cleaning services, the issue of expertise is irrelevant since throughout the years, the university has operated cleaning services by itself, and even today, in practice, university personnel supervises this field. The second argument concerns the justification given to outsourcing of cleaning workers if their cost is indeed lower than their cost as university employees. In this context, professor Ariel Rubinstein, recipient of the Israel Prize for Economics, has said that "the employment of workers through contractors is the product of greed and a lack of solidarity (Rubinstein, 2006). But does this form of employment indeed save money? According to our calculations, there is no significant saving here; but even if a calculation

should show that the university pays a considerably lower price for an hour of work in contractual employment, other factors work in the opposite direction and make the contractor's services expensive for the University, in comparison to the cost of direct employment. Amongst these factors are the contractor's wish to make a profit, transference of risks from the one ordering the service or work to the contractor, the contractor's financing needs and more. In any case, it certainly cannot be assumed a priori that employment via a contractor is cheaper, and every case should be studied in its own right (Shtauber, 2003). In jobs in which the wage is low, the more the one ordering the work requires meeting the requirements of the law and of the work agreements, the bigger the chance that the cost of the contractor's work is only slightly different from the cost of direct employment. Moreover: even if we accept the argument of economic saving for the university itself, contractual employment is in no way economically efficient on the national level. For years, the Ministry of Finance insists on reducing public budgets and demands that the public institutions reduce their expenses; these institutions choose the easy way: they transfer the burden of saving onto the shoulders of their weakest workers - new immigrants, single mothers etc. - workers whose bargaining ability is low, and who are exposed to exploitation. There is no economic efficiency here, as the money actually reaches the public pocket from the weakened cleaning workers.A few temporary conclusionsThe struggle of the cleaning workers at The Ben-Gurion University is not over. Thus, one cannot draw final conclusions, and every conclusion is in essence temporary, even though the workers' state is now (on many levels) much better than it was at the beginning of the road; this, on the level of consciousness, the organizational level and in their will to fight for their rights.Nonetheless, they still have not reached the desired objective: to be regular university workers. This is a struggle which has many consequences beyond the campus of Be'er-Sheva and winning this "local battle" could be a breakthrough for groups of workers in other universities and even for workers in the entire labor market. This is perhaps the main source of difficulty in winning the battle: behind the persistence of the university stands not only the management that is not willing to strengthen the weakest sector in the campus. Behind the management is the government of capital that examines each and every case under a magnifying glass. This is due to a fear that winning the local battle might break the frameworks of contractual work, first and foremost in public institutions and later on, in the entire labor market. Divided workers are exploited workers.How can one engage in this battle, in which the forces are not equal? Firstly, by isolating the rival (the management, the government), instead of them isolating us. In Israel, there are about 300 thousand students in higher education institutions and thousands of professors, who may become partners in the struggle. Some have already done so. But there is still a lot of work to be done. At the end of the day, the struggle is not just

for the benefit of the unfortunate. It is also a struggle over the image and essence of Israeli society. It is not an act of mercy, but an act of justice.

       The writers are:Orna Amos: a community social worker, a lecture and supervisor  in the department of social work at The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and a senior guide in the activist course for social change, a member in Ko'ach La'ovdim- Democratic Workers Organization, and one of those who accompanied the organization of the cleaning workers from  its onset. Orna.amos@gmail.comTal Baharav: a social activist in the Tzach (Social Justice) organization at The Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and one of the leaders of the struggle for the workers' direct employment, a student in the department of politics and administration, and the department of education. A managing partner in Magal - Kav Hazinuk, a program for the development of young leadership in the Negev. tbaharav@gmail.com

[1] Commodification: making everything tradable. People also become tradable so that they ought to be exploited as much as possible, in order to maximize profits. [2] From the words of Sharona Tzur, a cleaning worker at the Tel-Aviv University, employed by a contractor company for cleaning services.